


In The Good Place

by YouCould



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Day At The Beach, Does it count as rewrite if you started it before it even came out, F/M, Fix-It, Flashbacks, Fluff, Gen, Humor, M/M, Major Character Resurrection, Not Canon Compliant, Post Season 7, Season 8 Rewrite, Shiro gets time to grieve but not too long because unbury your gays is an important trope, Slow Burn, Things Go Better For Allura, and I'm not getting paid for this shit, as of season 8, even Adashi is slow burn and technically they were already together, keith and shiro are gay disasters, listen this is probably full of plot holes but so is the show, literally there's so many flashbacks, some pathetic attempts at, that's also a thing, there you go writers i did your fucking job for you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-07-08 11:40:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 41,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15929693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouCould/pseuds/YouCould
Summary: In which season eight actually happens in the Good Place and not in the timeline that god abandoned, and everything that went wrong somehow goes well.Or,Someone gets resurrected, Allura does some cool stuff, Keith and Lance need to sit down and talk, and the MFE squad is kind of cute.





	1. The Unbury Your Gays Arc, part I

**Author's Note:**

> Listen, LISTEN. Season seven hurt me so badly that I got violently yeeted out of writer's block, and now I'm presenting to you This Mess, aka me trying to give Voltron an actual conclusion that doesn't leave me wanting to jump off a bridge. Enjoy, I guess? I am so genuinely sorry.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith: talk about your feelings  
> Shiro: nah

The MFEs fly in a triangular formation, James Griffin at its head, and despite past disagreements, Keith has to admit that he’s a very talented pilot. Keith shoots a glance at Shiro, who is sitting with him on the roof watching the four cadets training, his white hair gleaming in the burning desert sun. He has a small smile on his face, perhaps amused by such a tight-knit team of pilots, but even now, Keith can’t help but think, he looks… distant. Not in the way he did when he was an evil Galra clone, more like he's lost somewhere in his head, ruminating the same thoughts over and over.

“Okay, one last leap!” James’s voice comes through the intercom. “Leifsdottir and I will move forward, Kinkade and Rizavi take the sides!”

A chorus of ‘yes, sir!’ comes through, and after soaring through the air to adjust their positions, the MFEs leap into an impressive dive, straightening themselves just a split second before they hit the ground. James and Leifsdottir continue to move forward, but Kincaid and Rizavi shift respectively to the right and to the left, so that they are more in a diamond-shaped formation.

“What do you think?” Shiro asks, turning towards him.

“They are a good team,” Keith says after a moment of consideration, “And James is a good leader.”

“Didn't you punch him in the face multiple times, back at the Academy?”

“I did,” Keith shrugs. “In my defence, he was a real dick back then.”

This gets a laugh out of Shiro. “You’ve both grown.” He says, before turning on the intercom. “That was some good work, guys. Let’s wrap it up and call it a day.”

Cheerful exclamations come through the intercom as the MFEs pull back in, and Shiro gets up with a smile. “Come on,” he says, “let's get back to the others.”

He's already halfway to the stairs, and that's when Keith realises that if he's going to ask, he has to do it now.

“Shiro, wait,” he says scrambling to his feet. Shiro turns around, and Keith can see that the urgency in his voice made him frown.

“What is it?”

Keith hesitates, trying to find the right words. “We haven't really had time to talk, with the Galra threatening to destroy the Earth and everything else, but I meant to ask.... how are you holding up?”

Shiro doesn't look down. “I’m fine, Keith,” He says, and, well. Shiro often says that he's fine and rarely means it, and Keith is usually able to catch him on it because he's known him for years, but this time it's such a blatant lie that he thinks even a stranger would be able to tell.

“I know how much Adam meant to you,” he presses on. This time, Shiro freezes for a second.

“You don't need to worry about me, Keith.”

“It's okay to grieve,” Keith cuts him off. “You lost someone you loved. I understand that back then we were in immediate danger and you pulled through, but you can't keep going like this.”

Shiro stares at him for another moment, then looks down, his shoulders hunching forward.

“It's just…” he moves his lips silently, clearly struggling to find the words. He nervously opens and closes his Altean hand. “It feels so unfair. I keep trying to think of ways this could’ve gone differently, and I just can't find it. If I hadn't gone on the Kerberos mission, I would have died on earth, and even if I hadn't, we would have both died whenever the Galra attacked.” He's rambling now, and Keith thinks he can see tears in his eyes. He doesn't say anything, waiting for Shiro to finish. “And I can't think of a way we could have gotten to Earth in time to stop the Galra invasion. And I really… when we decided to come back to Earth, I thought I would see him again, and I wasn't ill anymore and maybe we could work things out, or maybe he had found someone else, but at least I would know for sure he was doing fine. And instead-” Shiro’s voice cracks, and he's shaken by a violent hiccup. He takes a deep breath to recompose himself, and dries his cheeks with the palm of his hand. “It's like fate decided that we had to be separated,” he says, his voice slightly steadier. “And no matter how much I try to wrap my head around it, it just feels so unfair.”

“I understand,” Keith nods, taking a tentative step towards him. “And I’m sorry. For what it's worth, I miss him too.”

Shiro sighs. “Of course,” he says, “I’m sorry, Keith. I shouldn’t have burdened you with this.”

“Don’t - don’t apologise.” Keith interrupts him, and takes another step to wrap his arms around him. “Take your time,” he whispers against Shiro’s neck. He can feel Shiro sobbing against him again, then letting go of him. Shiro’s cheeks are damp again, but he looks slightly more put together now.

“Thank you, Keith,” is all he says, before turning towards the door and leaving him on the roof.

***

_The screen over the simulator points at a time of 3.27 minutes. A red star, lit up next to it, indicates that it's a new record._   
_"It looks like Wilson has just set a new Galaxy Garrison record," remarks Commander Dara cheerfully. As cheerfully as the constantly frowning woman can appear, anyway. "Congratulations, Cadet," she adds, as Adam Wilson steps out of the simulator. Wilson awkwardly nods in her direction. Despite having every right to, he doesn't look smug: he looks proud and slightly flustered, and sweat is glueing his hair to his forehead. Shiro has, of course, noticed Adam Wilson before - one of the best pilots in his class, possibly the best - that is to say, after him, because the one thing Shiro definitely knows how to do is fly. But he would be lying if he said that his and Wilson's scores haven’t been neck to neck in a number of occasions, and he would also be lying if he said that Wilson doesn't look cute as he pushes his hair off his forehead._   
_"Alright, who's next?" The Commander says hurriedly as soon as Wilson has fully stepped off the platform, and a chorus of oh no's and I'm not going after that spreads through the rest of the class._   
_Shiro takes a step forward. "I'll go,"._   
_"Brilliant, Cadet Shirogane," the Commander says while Shiro starts heading towards the centre of the room. As he walks, he crosses eyes with Wilson, who gives him a nod of encouragement. Shiro swallows, and gets into the simulator._

_The flying simulation is - not easy, it requires most of Shiro’s concentration to fly through the most difficult parts, but when all is said and done, Shiro has to admit he expected worse. The screen shows that his time is 2.44 minutes, which means that he just broke Wilson's record. He sighs and gets out of the simulator, where Commander Dara congratulates him briefly. Most of the class is staring at him wide-eyed, with the exception of Wilson who is leaning against the wall across from the simulator and studying him through his glasses. Shiro wonders if he's annoyed at his record being beaten, but the corners of his lips are curled slightly upwards. More than anything, he looks amused._

_After that, the class gets dismissed pretty quickly, mostly because few of those who are left are willing to even try the simulator. As everyone quickly rushes to get their things, someone lightly brushes Shiro’s elbow._

_“Shirogane, wait,” Wilson is saying just as Shiro turns around to investigate. “Huh, hello,” he adds nervously once Shiro is facing him. He pushes his glasses back by the bridge, using his middle finger. Shiro’s throat gets suddenly and inexplicably dry. “I just wanted to say,” Wilson continues, “congratulations. That was very impressive.”_

_Shiro can feel the blush coming to his face, so he looks down before saying, “Thank you. You flew really well too.”_

_“Well,” Wilson replies, “no better than you.”_

_There isn't even a hint of bitterness in his voice, which makes Shiro want to look up again, to find Wilson staring at him through his glasses with the same intense, focused expression he had before._

_Before Shiro can say anything else, he adds, “Where are you heading now?”_

_“I…” Shiro stutters, “I have an engineering lab. In padilion five?”_

_“I’m going that way, actually,” Wilson says. “Do you-” he stumbles, “do you mind if we walk together?”_

_“Uh, no,” Shiro’s ears feel uncomfortably warm. He wonders how visibly he's blushing. “Of course not.”_

_Wilson smiles, and holds the door open for Shiro as they head out. Shiro can’t help but notice how, despite being slimmer, Wilson is just a few inches taller than him._

_“I have to admit,” Shiro says after a few seconds of silence, wondering what the hell has gotten into him, “I thought you might be annoyed, since I…” he trails off, not sure how to continue._

_“You beat my time just minutes after I’d set a new record?” Wilson finishes for him, a small smile appearing on his face. At Shiro’s awkward nod, he continues with a shrug. “Being the best doesn't leave much room for improvement. If anything, I’m more determined now.”_

_“You did fly really well today,” Shiro repeats, just because it sounds like the right thing to say._

_“Thank you. Besides,” Wilson adds after a short pause, “who knows. I might even beat your score next time. This could be the start of a friendly feud.”_

_His voice is soft as he says it, and Shiro breaks into a grin._

_“Yeah, okay. I’m looking forward to that.”_

***

“Where’s Shiro?” Coran asks as soon as Keith walks into the one of the Garrison’s common lounges on his own, to find all the Paladins waiting for him. Keith can't help but notice that Lance and Allura are sitting on the same couch while Hunk, Pidge and Coran are all squeezed on a different one, as if they're trying to avoid them. Keith can't blame them: he hasn't quite figured out exactly what Lance’s situation with Allura is, but he knows he doesn't want to know.

He doesn't need to ask to know that they’d all been waiting for him and Shiro to get back, because according to some silent agreement, they still meet, just the seven of them, to debrief before going into any official Garrison meetings, and there's a lot of those these days. Old habits die hard, Keith guesses, and as good as it is to be back on Earth, it had been just the seven of them for years.

He clenches his fist, wondering what to say. Shiro had simply asked him to go ahead after they left the roof, only explaining that there was something he had to do, and Keith hadn’t argued. Shiro needed his time.

“He's getting some rest,” he says eventually.

“That's understandable,” Allura interrupts, quickly enough that Keith has to wonder just how much she knows about what Shiro is going through, “we’re all tired, with everything that’s happened.”

“Where have you been all day anyway?” Lance asks, tilting his head a bit so he can look at Keith straight in his eyes.

“Overseeing the MFE’s squadron training. Why, where have you been?”

The question is aimed at all of them, but Keith is still looking at Lance, who interprets it as a personal question. His gaze goes dark and he looks away. “It doesn't matter.”

Keith is tempted to ask, but Lance is clearly not interested in talking, so he labels that as one of the many things that Lance does that Keith never understands, and turns to the others.

Hunk, who is looking at Lance with a slightly concerned expression, takes the hint, and cuts in with, “Pidge and I have been working with her dad on the Atlas situation. We are thinking, if we connect the crystal to a natural source of energy, it might just work to make its life more durable-”

Keith raises a hand, and goes to sit on the one free armchair in the room. “Hold on,” he says, “explain it to me in a way I can understand.”

“We are going to grow a forest on board of the Atlas,” Pidge intervenes, “Well, more like a garden. Which should allow us to use it to its full potential.” She probably notices Keith's lost expression then, because she adds, in the tone you would use to speak to a child, “We’re struggling because, despite having built it based on Altean technology, it's still very… earthlike. Quintessence runs in all living beings, so we could use it to translate its Altean abilities to our own. That way, we’d be able to understand it better.”

“It was Pidge’s idea,” Hunk adds, and from his tone, Keith can tell that he's in awe.

“I thought about how the Green Lion could connect to trees,” Pidge explains, “and I thought if we could use trees from Earth, that could be just the right bridge between Altean and Earth technology.”

Keith still doesn't really get it, but he understands that it's an impressive achievement, so he nods. “That's great,” he says. “Good job, guys.” Then he turns to Allura. “Have you made any progress?” he asks, thinking about the Altean girl they’d found in the core of the warrior they’d fought just ten days before.

She looks down and clenches her hands. “No matter what I do, she won't speak to me,” she says, and frustration is clear in her voice. “She was really weak when we found her, and I thought she just had to recover, but even now that she seems to be physically well, I can't find a way to get through to her.” Allura looks so disheartened while saying this, that Keith can't help but try to think of a way he could comfort her.

“It's okay,” Lance says before anyone else can do anything. “I’m sure you’ll warm up to her, eventually. You just have to keep on being yourself.”

Allura’s blush is clearly visible on her cheeks. “Thank you, Lance.” She whispers, and Keith feels an irresistible urge to look away, as a pang of discomfort burns through him.

“Besides,” Pidge adds, “We’re still contacting all remaining members of the old Voltron Coalition. Someone might know where she’s from.”

“I suppose you're right,” Allura says, and the tension in her shoulders seems to relax just a little bit.

_***_

Shiro finds Matt and Colleen Holt in their apartment at the Garrison, and they both welcome him warmly, letting him sit down and offering a cup of coffee. They make small talk for a while, and Colleen takes the chance to thank him profusely for keeping her children safe. They’re so kind that Shiro’s heart contracts almost uncomfortably. After a while, perhaps sensing some tension in the air, Colleen makes her excuses, leaving Shiro alone with Sam. He continues talking about the progress they’re making with the Atlas, and how their research might help them figure out better what Shiro did when he somehow turned it into an Altean warrior. Once he’s done, he gives a long, thoughtful look at Shiro. “How are you, really?” he asks. Sam is the second person to ask Shiro that today, and he wonders if he's really doing such a bad job of holding himself together.

“I’m fine,” he says, and Sam doesn't look convinced, but differently from Keith, he doesn't press on. Ironically, it's his silence that convinces Shiro to ask the question that's been burning him for days.

“I actually came here today because there is something I need to know,” Shiro starts, his tone a bit uncertain, “and I think you're the only one who’d be able to tell me.” Sam nods at him to continue, so Shiro swallows and gathers his courage. “Did Adam know?” He finally says, and the words come out in a rush. “When he died, did he know that I was alive? That I was coming back?”

“Yes,” Sam says slowly, looking at Shiro carefully. “He knew because I told him. I think…” he stops, clearly uncertain of what to say next. “I think he was waiting for you.”

Shiro’s breath abruptly cuts off, and he has to open his mouth, gasping for hair. No matter how hard he tries to push it away, his chest feels violently and irremediably tight.

“Thanks for telling me,” he eventually manages to say. “I’m just going to…” he doesn't finish the sentence and heads towards the door. His throat is burning.

“Shiro, I just wanted to say-” Sam says, and Shiro, with incredible effort, turns to look at him. “I’m so sorry for what happened to him. I wish I’d have done more to stop it.”

He looks so genuinely heartbroken, that Shiro forces himself to swallow the lump in his throat. “It wasn't your fault,” he says. “But thank you.”

He doesn't wait for Sam’s reply to run out the door.

***

_“God, Shiro, will you please stop fidgeting?” Wilson says, barely looking up from his lunch._

_“I’m not fidgeting,” Shiro rebuts, while fidgeting with his fork._

_Wilson snorts. “What are you even worried about anyway? Everyone in this room knows you're gonna get the highest score. Oh, and I’m gonna come out two points right under you.”_

_“It's not the scores I’m worried about,” Shiro says, and that gets Wilson to look up with one eyebrow raised, clearly looking for explanations. Shiro goes on fidgeting with his fork. “Aren’t you worried?” he asks eventually. “About who you're gonna get paired up with?”_

_Now both of Wilson's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Well,” he starts, adjusting his glasses. He does it in the same way he did when they first talked to each other, by using his middle finger to push them back by the bridge, and Shiro’s throat gets suddenly and inexplicably dry just like it had the first time. “I have a pretty good idea of who it's going to be, and I’m happy with it.”_

_Wilson is analytical. He's logical and cautious, and he makes conclusions based on his situation, differently from Shiro, who has a good instinct and tends to act upon it. That's why they make such a good pair, Shiro thinks: they complete each other. That's why, he insists to himself, he cares so much about Wilson being assigned as his co-pilot, now that they are graduating from the Academy._

_“Why?” he can't restrain himself from asking, “who do you think you're gonna get?”_

_The corners of Wilson’s lips curl upward, and he looks down for a second. “Doesn't matter. Anyway, we're going to find out soon enough.” Wilson gestures to the board on the back wall of the canteen, where the results of their final exam will come up, paired up with the one of their future co-pilot. As Shiro looks around, he realises that at least he's not the only one who's nervous: everyone but Wilson looks terrified. “I do wish they would hurry, though,” Wilson adds, “I have a doctor's appointment in less than 20 minutes.”_

_“Why? Are you okay?”_

_Wilson seems endearingly amused at Shiro’s concern. “I’m just getting my glasses’ prescription changed. My eyesight has worsened, even in spite of the Garrison’s medication. Of course, that's not going to happen if these results don't come out already. Guess I’m going to be half-blind by the time I turn thirty.”_

_As if on cue, the board lights up, and stillness falls upon the room as they all read the results._

_Shiro’s name is the first on the list, and he got the highest possible score, but he barely registers the perfect result as he reads on, eager to get to the name next to his. When he gets to it, he feels the smile grow on his face. His co-pilot is Adam Wilson._

_“Fucking called it,” Wilson is saying, “I’m just two points below you, you bastard.”_

_Shiro knows he's not really mad, because Wilson only swears when he's relaxed, and he's only relaxed when things go exactly as he expects them to, which means that he expected Shiro to be his co-pilot, and to do just slightly better than him in the exam, and he's happy with that._

_“So, we're co-pilots,” Wilson says looking straight at him, his radiant smile confirming his suspicions._

_“We’re co-pilots,” Shiro repeats and he can feel the blush on his face, and decides he doesn't really care. “I’m glad you are my co-pilot, Wilson.” Shiro says honestly._

_“As great as that is, now that we’re co-pilots,” they’re both repeating the words_ co-pilots _as if they're magic, “you really have to start calling me Adam.”_

_“Then you should call me Takashi,” Shiro says on instinct, and then gets surprised at himself, because, well. To everyone, he's just Shiro. Only his father used to call him Takashi, and they’ve barely spoken in  five years._

_“Takashi,” Wilson - no, not Wilson,_ Adam _\- repeats. He pronounces each syllable slowly, as if he's savouring the word. “Okay. I will do that.”_

_They're gazing at each other, smiling brightly. Shiro feels a bit overwhelmed._

_“I think I - shit, I need to go,” Adam says, glancing quickly at his watch. Then he looks at Shiro again, and smiles even more brightly, his gaze intense behind the glasses._

_He bites his lip as if he's thinking, and then says, “Well, I am looking forward to flying with you,_ Takashi.” _He squeezes Shiro’s shoulder as he goes, and with the newly found closeness, Shiro thinks he can see Adam’s cheeks being slightly redder than usual._

_As Shiro watches him go, he thinks of Adam’s radiant smile, and of the way he pronounced Shiro’s name as if it was a gift that he’d been given, and for the first time he thinks,_ this might be a problem.

 

***

 

“And so he convinced himself that if he built himself a plane, any plane, he could fly,” Veronica is saying, leaning forward in her chair.

“Please stop talking,” Lance interrupts her.

“Please continue,” Pidge says instead. “I’m making a folder of things I can blackmail Lance with. This sounds like prime material.”

That gets a laugh out of the rest of the room. Even Kinkade and Leifsdottir, who are normally really quiet, let out a snort. They're all sitting together for dinner, the paladins and the MFEs pilots, and Veronica’s been telling them stories of Lance’s childhood, just to see to her job of embarrassing older sister.

“I like you,” Veronica tells Pidge, and then continues, ignoring Lance’s request. “So he built himself this plane out of cardboard paper and tape, and tried to fly it off the roof of the barn one night.”

“What happened then?” Keith leans forward to ask, because he would be lying if he said that he wasn't curious about what kind of shenanigans Lance got up to as a child.

“I fell into a pile of hay and got back in the house with grass in my hair and copiously bleeding knees,” Lance cuts in before Veronica can say anything. “We get it, I was an incredibly dumb child. Let’s talk about something else.”

“No, it was cute, though,” Veronica says. “You just really wanted to see the stars.”

Keith feels himself smile, and the atmosphere in the room gets slightly more serious. They can all understand that.

“Yeah, well. I’ve seen plenty, now.” Lance remarks. He sounds tired. They all are.

After a moment of silence, James is the one who clears his throat and asks, “So what's it like? Being a paladin of Voltron?” All the MFE pilots, and Veronica, perk up at that, as if they’ve all been dying to ask.

The paladins all turn to Keith, expecting him to reply. He swallows. “It's difficult. But it's also good.” he says after a moment of consideration.

“There’s a lot of pressure,” Lance intervenes. “Whatever you do, there’s lives at stake.”

“And you can never catch a break,” Hunk adds, “but it's worth it. When you manage to do something good.”

“You see so many incredible things, and learn so much. But you can't always save everyone, and that's -” Pidge’s voice trails off.

“It's a lot,” Allura continues for her. “but we were chosen to do it, and we do it gladly, because it's the right thing to do.

Everyone goes quiet for a second. Leifsdottir, Rizavi, James and Kinkade all seem lost in thought. Veronica is looking at Lance carefully.

“Well, whatever happens now,” Rizavi says, “you're not doing it alone. We’ve got your back.”

Keith smiles, and he can see the other Paladins doing the same. Suddenly, the atmosphere in the room feels lighter.

***

_“It’s weird, doing this without you.”_

_“I would only slow you down,” Adam replies, shooting Shiro a glance as he leans forward to help him close his uniform’s straps._

_“That's not true.” Shiro protests._

_Adam stops working on Shiro’s uniform to look at him straight in the eye. “It is, and you know it,” he says. One thing about Adam is - he's brutally honest. Not in a cruel way, but he never lies to himself, and he's good at knowing when something is important enough to need to be said, and when he decides something is important, he doesn't shy away from saying it. He's the truest person Shiro has ever known, and about this - he's right. He and Adam work perfectly on missions where there is need to cooperate, but this is a solo mission, for testing a new type of shuttle that should allow them to circumnavigate the earth from low orbit in less than thirty minutes – and the Garrison needed their best, fastest pilot. And that was Shiro. “Besides, it's not like you’ll be on your own,” Adam adds, recognising Shiro’s still uncertain gaze, “I’ll have you through radio. I’ll be right with you the whole time.”  He gets back to tying the uniform’s straps as he sees Shiro reply to that with a small smile._

_He's not really nervous, because every chance to see space is incredibly welcome to Shiro. But the stakes of this mission, they're high. If this works, it might just be what the world needs to develop new engines that will take them further and further into the universe. But there is a chance that the engine will burn out before Shiro can land back on Earth, leaving him to aimlessly drift through space until he runs out of hair so, yeah, maybe he's a little nervous after all._

_Adam’s watch beeps, and he looks at it like it's personally betrayed him. “Looks like we both have to head to our positions,” he says, finishing up with the uniform and looking up at Shiro. “It will be just like we ran it in the simulations, okay? You’ll do great.” He tells Shiro. “And I’ll have your back through all of it.”_

_Shiro looks at him and nods. “I guess I will see you back here in an hour, if this goes well.”_

_“It will,” Adam says, and his tone is final. “Good luck, Takashi.”  He holds out his hand as if he wants to shake Shiro’s, then seems to change his mind at the last second and pulls him in for a hug. He pulls back without another word and they both start heading to their respective doors. Right when Shiro’s about to turn the handle, Adam’s voice stops him._

_“Oh, and, Takashi,” he's saying as Shiro turns around. He's stopped just one step away from the floor and he's looking at Shiro. “Do try not to die in space. Finding another roommate who will steal my socks every morning will be difficult, and I’ve sort of gotten used to a routine, at this point.”_

_Shiro would protest that he's never stolen anyone’s socks in his life, but he knows that for Adam this means exactly what it sounds like:_ come back, because I like having you around.

_He smiles, and heads to the shuttle._

_The mission goes well. The shuttle holds for the whole journey, and Shiro manages to fly around the Earth in twenty-two minutes, four minutes under the estimated time. He's back at the Garrison in less than an hour, and when he gets off the shuttle, still ecstatic with adrenaline, a crowd of people is waiting for him, congratulating him and shaking his hand. Adam stands a bit on the side-lines, his smile as radiant as the brightest stars Shiro has seen._

_They only manage to get some time for themselves a few hours later, once all the data has been collected, all congratulations have been said, and all statements have been made._

_“So, that was something,” Adam says once they’re back in their shared room, still smiling widely._

_“It… it really was,” It's all Shiro can say._

_“You did it, Takashi.”_

_Shiro looks at Adam, and thinks of all the times they’ve flown together, and of all the times he stood by his side as Shiro undertook simulation after simulation, of Adam’s voice coming through the radio to alert him of any danger during the mission._

_“No,” he tells him. “We did it.”_

_Adam looks at Shiro and purses his lips, as if he's deep in thought. Then he sets his shoulders as if he's made a decision, takes two long strides towards Shiro and, cupping his face between his hands, kisses him right on the lips._

_When Adam kisses him, it's just the same feeling as watching the Earth from space, as seeing the stars for the first time and as flying around the Earth in twenty-two minutes. Shiro wraps his arms around Adam’s neck, and melts into the kiss._

_***_

The placard next to the door is blank now, but once it used to read _Takashi Shirogane & Adam Wilson. _They’d moved in there shortly after their first kiss, exchanging their dorm-like apartment for a more familial unit. Shiro slides his passe-partout on the keypad, and the door slides open the same way it had years earlier. The living room has been cleaned now, and it looks sterile and uncontaminated. Once there were pictures on the fridge, books and school papers thrown around, and circular stains of coffee wherever Adam left his mug. Shiro takes it all in, the same sofa and the same table and the same kitchen counter, and remembers.

 

***

_It had started with nothing. It had started with a bit of dizziness every now and again, and with muscles aching after what once only required minimal effort, but overall a change so subtle that Shiro had barely paid any attention to it._

_Until one morning, when Shiro wakes up feeling more tired than usual. He drags himself to the kitchen counter, where Adam hands him a plate stacked with pancakes._

_“I was in a mood,” he says with a shrug at the sight of Shiro’s raised eyebrow. He's downing his coffee like his life depends on it, and his engagement ring is shining on his left hand. The whole situation makes Shiro smile. Before Adam can put down his coffee, Shiro takes it from his hand and takes a long swig, then puts it back in his hand._

_“Rude,” is all the other says, before turning his attention back to his own stack of pancakes. “I forgot to tell you, I taught your kid’s class, yesterday.” He adds after a while._

_“If he's my kid, that means he's also your kid.” Shiro points out, but Adam shakes his head._

_“Huh-huh. No. I don't just go out and adopt any kid who steals my car.”_

_“Seriously, what do you think of him?”_

_“He's a bastard with a huge attitude problem,” Adam says. “I really like him.”_

_Shiro snorts. “Good, because once we get married he is your kid too.”_

_“Wish I could've said that to my mother when she cried because she found out I would never give her any grandchildren.”_

_Shiro looks up at Adam, wondering if the thought actually upsets him, but he's smiling, rolling the ring around his finger. “I don't care,” Adam says, noticing Shiro’s concerned gaze. “And I do really like your kid, Takashi.”_

_“Our kid.”_

_“Until we get married, it's your kid.”_

_“Let’s hope it's soon, then.”_

_“Yeah,” Adam replies, smiling at Shiro. “Let’s hope it's soon.”_

_Things seem to proceed as normal, but when Shiro gets up, his vision goes black, and then things get kind of blurry, and all of a sudden he's lying on the cold floor, and the last thing he remembers is Adam calling his name before being enveloped by the black, black darkness._

_They run some tests, and when the results come out, the doctor informs them in no easy terms that there isn't much they can do, except give him meds and keep his body in check and hope that someone, at some point, comes up with a cure. His tone seems to imply that he doesn't imagine that happening any time soon._

_That night, Adam and Shiro lie in the dark together, arms wrapped around each other._

_“I’m sorry,” Shiro whispers into Adam’s neck._

_Adam gently kisses his forehead, then whispers on his skin, “It's okay. We’ll figure it out.”_

_They don't figure it out. Well, they do, and then the Kerberos mission comes up, and Shiro knows he has to go, he has to take his last chance to see the stars before his own body betrays him, before his muscles get so shrivelled up and frail that he can barely get out of bed. And Adam - Adam walks out. Adam, analytical, logical Adam, takes a look at the situation, considers how much this will hurt the both of them, and makes a conclusion, and ends things. Sometimes Shiro wonders, if Adam hadn’t done it first, if he would have been brave enough to break it off. He never gives himself an answer._

_Just before his departure, while Sam and Matt Holt are saying goodbye to Colleen, Adam comes to see him off, and the Holts sensitively leave them some space._

_“I wasn't sure you’d come,” Shiro starts._

_“I was certain I would,” Adam replies, honest as always. Shiro’s heart throbs painfully. “I just wanted to say, good luck.”_

_“Thank you,” Shiro nods. He can see that Adam’s eyes are slowly filling with tears._

_Adam takes an uncertain step towards him. “Just, please don't die in space.” He says, his words rushed. He pushes his glasses back by the bridge, and Shiro’s throat hurts._

_“Doing my best not to,” Shiro whispers, and then makes a decision, and leans in to kiss him. Adam meets him halfway, his hands delicately touching Shiro’s hips. The kiss is stained with tears, and it feels like a goodbye._

_***_

The bedroom is also completely aseptic, and yet Shiro can’t help but see Adam everywhere. Tying his shoes on the edge of the bed, falling asleep on a pile homework, pulling Shiro down on the bed for a kiss.

Shiro doesn't even bother to turn on the light, and simply lays down on the bed, curling himself up. The bedsheets smell like neutral laundry soap, not like Adam, who smelled of aftershave and coffee. Shiro doesn't know what he expected.

He takes a deep breath, and burying his face into the pillow on Adam’s side, he finally lets go, and cries all the tears he has.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Chapter features me singlehandedly fighting anyone who says Adam is definitively dead.
> 
> Also! I've written up to chapter five of this thing and have an outline of thirteen chapters, so I hope I can upload relatively regularly. By the way, I'm sort of looking for a beta reader for this fic, so if you'd like to do that, you'll receive my eternal gratitude. If you want, come and shout with me on my tumblr, at officiallyadoptingshinyahiiragi.tumblr.com!


	2. The Unbury Your Gays Arc, part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Voltron writers: Adam is dead  
> Me: nah

“So,” Hunk says while switching on the controls on the transmitter, “we’re still broadcasting to old members of the Voltron coalition to let them know we're making base on Earth. Not everyone is replying, but it's something.”

“Do we have any news on what the Galra are doing?” Shiro asks.

“Well, since Krolia and Kolivan got back, we’ve been getting more news from the Blade of Marmora, and apparently they've shattered into a number of fractions. We think, they should meet again for their election thing soon.” Hunk says, then starts turning some handles on the transmitter, his tongue between his lips in a frown of concentration. Finally, a rhythmic beep comes out from the speaker, occasionally interrupted by the rustling of some interference. “There you go,” Hunk explains, “this channel is open to all sorts of distress signals. Anyone who's looking for help from Voltron, we should be able to get it from here.”

“Of course, the signals can only go so far,” Pidge adds. She's leaning on the wall opposite Shiro, her arms crossed, “so we're asking various members of the Coalition to set up repeaters all over the galaxy.”

Shiro nods, and there’s a moment of silence, only interrupted by the beeping of the transmitter. Shiro can’t help but notice that there seems to be a rhythm to the interference, and he starts to count the beats in his head, thinking.

“Shiro, do you think…” his train of thoughts gets interrupted by Hunk, “do you think we’ll have to leave Earth soon?”

On one hand, Shiro wants to leave Earth and never come back, seek comfort in the stars and forget. On the other, he's so tired, and it looks like they all are. “I don't know,” he says. “I guess we'll find out once we know more about what's going on.”

“That interference is really bothering me,” Pidge says suddenly, “can we tune it out?”

Hunk looks surprised by the sudden change of topic, but nods nonetheless. “Huh, yeah, I guess,” he goes for the controls, but Shiro stops him.

“Wait,” he says, “listen.”

“Yeah, that's what’s bothering me about it,” Pidge explains, heading towards the controls, “we get it every time we open this channel, and it has a rhythm, but I ran it through the Garrison’s database and it couldn't decipher it. It's not any sort of code I know either.”

“That's because-” Shiro starts to say, but then seems to change his mind halfway through and shakes his head. Instead, he says, “It's a distress signal. Can you pinpoint its location?”

“I mean, yes. But if it was a distress signal, it would be much clearer-”

Shiro raises his hand to stop her from talking, and closes his eyes. He looks, well, lost. Hunk isn't really sure what's wrong with him, but lately he's been… off. He would ask Keith, but Shiro doesn't seem to be dying to share, and it feels wrong to go behind his back like this. All Hunk has gathered is that Shiro lost someone important during the Galra invasion, and to be fair, that seems like enough. Hunk tries to imagine, if he'd lost his loved ones, if any of his family had died before they could free the labour camps, he would be doing a lot worse than ‘looking a bit off’. So Hunk decides to lightly touch Pidge’s shoulder, and luckily she takes the hint and starts working on the screen to calculate the signal’s origin without Shiro having to say anything else.

“It's… on Earth. In the desert, not too far,” Pidge reports after a few seconds, surprise in her voice.

Shiro takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says then, “I’m taking Keith and the black lion and we're going to check it out. Please, stay on the intercom in case we need back-up.”

“Huh, okay.” Pidge seems slightly disconcerted by the whole ordeal, but she agrees anyway.

Shiro barely waits for her answer and makes for the door.

“Shiro, wait,” Hunk asks, and Shiro turns around, slowly. “How do you know? That it's a distress signal?

Shiro visibly falters. “Because I invented that code,” is all he says before heading out the door.

***

They fly slowly, keeping relatively close to the ground.

“So, what exactly are we doing here?” Keith asks, working on the commands of the black lion.

Shiro, hovering somewhere behind him, replies, “We’re following a distress signal.”

“Okay,” Keith sighs, “but what’s it from? Who is sending it?”

Shiro doesn't answer, but leans forward a bottle bit, so he can rest his arms on Keith's chair. Keith feels – at a loss. He can tell that whatever it is is important to Shiro, he just wishes he’d tell him. He just wishes someone, anyone, would come to him when they need help. He basically had to force Shiro to open up, and even when Hunk came to him when he was worried about his family – it was because Keith had been the first person around to ask, not because Hunk particularly cared about opening up to Keith especially. If he had to do this, if he had to be the leader of Voltron, the others had to feel like they could come to him if they needed help, but even now that they had successfully defeated the Galra under what was, at least partially, his leadership, he still felt like he was doing it all wrong.

“The signal was sent in a code masked as an interference,” Shiro’s words interrupt his train of thought, “and the code was – it was something Adam and I came up with, in case of emergency.”

“You think… you think he is sending it?” Keith perks up. If there’s even a small chance, even the smallest chance of Adam being alive….

“I don’t know, Keith, but I just,” Shiro takes a deep breath, “I have to try.”

Keith nods, and flies on.

***

_Keith sits awkwardly on a couch, a warm cup of hot chocolate between his hands. He’s not really sure what he’s supposed to do, because he’s never been invited for dinner by someone whose car he stole. To be fair he hasn’t ever been invited to dinner at all. So he just sits on the couch, and waits for Shiro to come out of the bathroom. Instead, the front door opens, and a tall man with dark skin and half-moon spectacles comes in._

_The man puts down his bag, takes one look at Keith, raises an eyebrow, and then calls, “Takashi? Love of my life and sun of my stars, why is there a child in our kitchen?” The phrase is so over the top that it would make Keith either laugh or roll his eyes, if he wasn’t so nervous._

_Shiro comes out of the bathroom, shaking his hands to dry them. “This is Keith,” he says. “I thought he could stay for dinner.”_

_“Oh,” the man says, realisation dawning on his face, “you’re the kid who stole Takashi’s car. Of course you’re having dinner with us. Why not.”_

_Shiro gives one pointed look at the man, then turns to Keith. “Keith, this is Adam, my partner.”_

_Keith looks up at Adam, uncertain what to say next. Adam looks back at him, then at Shiro, and then back at Keith. “Takashi, can you leave Keith and I alone for a few minutes?”_

_“Don’t scare him,” Shiro replies, then disappears into what must be the bedroom._

_Adam goes to sit next to Keith on the couch. “Listen, Keith,” he says, “I’m not sure what to make of you, but Takashi seems to like you. So,” he pushes his glasses back by the bridge, using his middle finger. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I want an honest answer. Is that okay with you?” Uncertain, Keith nods, so Adam asks, “Why did you try to steal Takashi’s car?”_

_“It looked fast,” Keith lies, on instinct._

_“Bullshit,” Adam says. “I know a lie when I see one. Would you like to try again?”_

_He’s staring right into Keith’s eyes, and he thinks, this is the first time he hears a professional adult swear. There’s something, in the way Adam is looking at him, like there’s fire in his eyes, that makes Keith want to tell the truth._

_“I could tell he wanted to help me, and I thought that if I made him mad enough, he’d change his mind.”_

_“Why didn’t you want him to help you?” Adam squints a little, like he’s carefully studying Keith._

Because I don’t like to rely on people, _Keith thinks. “You said one question.” he says instead._

_That gets a laugh out of Adam. “You’re a clever one, aren’t you?” Something in his tone suggests that he somehow guessed Keith’s real reason, but he doesn’t inquire any further. Instead, he calls, “Takashi? It’s fine, the kid can stay.” Adam shoots one final look at Keith as Shiro walks in, and smiles to himself a little bit, then gets up to talk directly to Shiro. “The next time you decide to adopt a child, though, I want to be consulted.”_

_Shiro laughs, his eyes shining, and looking at the way the two of them smile at each other with ease, Keith thinks that for the first time, he has a grasp of what love could be like._

***

Hunk and Pidge stay in the communications room, nervously checking the black lion’s movements on the map.

“So,” Pidge asks, “what do you think that was about?”

“I don’t know,” Hunk looks at the screen, then back at Pidge, “but haven’t you noticed Shiro’s been a bit… off since we defeated the Galra?”

Pidge pushes her glasses back. “I mean, yeah. That’s because of Adam, I guess.”

“Who?”

“You… don’t know?” Pidge asks. She seems a bit uncertain on what to say next, so she goes on speaking slowly, as if she’s choosing the words carefully. “He was Shiro’s co-pilot. He died at the start of the Galra invasion.”

“Oh.” Hunk considers this. “Poor guy. We all got reunited with our families, and Shiro…”

“Yeah,” Pidge nods, nervously tapping her fingers on the side of the screen. “He was friends with Matt and my dad, too, and he-” she stops, then continues, anger rising in her voice, “it was just stupid. They knew normal weapons couldn’t stand a chance against the Galra, my dad told them, and they sent the ordinary pilots out anyway, and they all died.”

Hunk hasn’t really – he doesn’t want to say he hasn’t thought about it, but when he found his family – he was just so glad, that the deaths of the soldiers before them seemed so far away. He realises now, they are very close to Pidge.

“Are you okay?” he asks carefully.

“I’m just angry,” she says, and there is fire in her voice. “I didn’t know any of them, but my family did. We won in the end, and that’s all good, but those people who didn’t deserve to die are still dead, and my family is still mourning. And so is Shiro.”

The silence that falls upon them after that is – quiet, thoughtful. You could almost say solemn. Hunk had been in the hospital when Shiro had made his speech, but like everyone else, had seen recordings of it broadcasted on pretty much every existing channel. He had called it a solemn day, but Hunk considers now, there is nothing solemn about grief, or about loss. He wonders how much of that speech Shiro had actually meant.

There’s a knock on the door, which makes both Hunk and Pidge jump. Very slowly, the door opens a little, to reveal Shay standing in the doorway.

“Can I…?” she asks, “can I come in?”

“Huh, sure,” Hunk says, trying to look anywhere but at her. On his side, a devilish grin is growing on Pidge’s face, so she’s not an option either. He settles for the console.

“You know what,” Pidge says, and Hunk is genuinely scared. “I really need to go to the toilet. I guess I will have to leave you two alone.”  She wiggles her eyebrows at Hunk, so apparently now she’s decided to channel her anger into destroying Hunk’s life. Great. That’s just wonderful.

“Or you could also,” Hunk says, “stay here. You know, in case something happens.” He gestures to the console.

“But consider: I won’t do that. Bye kids, be safe!” She’s out of the door before Hunk can get another word out. Hunk immediately decides that she won’t be getting any home-made breakfast tomorrow.

“What…what was that about?” Shay asks, awkwardly.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Hunk says, more loudly than he needs to. “Literally. I have never had a single idea in my whole life.”

That gets a laugh out of Shay. “So,” she starts. “It’s good you’re out of the hospital.”

“It’s good to see you here.” Hunk swallows. “When are you? When are you thinking of going back?”

“Actually,” she says, “I think I might stay on Earth for a while.”

“Really? That’s great!” Hunk is fully aware that he’s beaming right now. He also realises he doesn’t really mind, when Shay smiles thankfully at his reaction.

“There is something I wanted to ask you,” she says then, getting slightly more serious. “About your cute Altean friend.”

“Allura?” Shay shakes her head at that. “Wait, Romelle?” At this, Shay nods. “Oh, yeah. She’s really nice.”

“She is,” Shay agrees. “Do you two get along well?”

“Oh, yeah. We just agree on, a lot of stuff.” Hunk replies, then shoots a glance at Shay, who is looking at him like she’s expecting something. Suddenly, Hunk realises what she’s actually asking. “But we’re friends! Just friends!” He adds nervously.

“Really?” Shay asks, and Hunk nods vigorously. “Well, that’s good to know.”

“Is – is it?”

“Yeah,” Shay replies with a smile.

***

The signal leads them to a cave on the side of the mountains, so they get off the black lion and slowly start making their way inside, Keith keeping his bayard at the ready. Not too far away from the entrance, they find a satellite dish, which looks like it’s been made from scratch. Keith is no expert, but he’d say that the way it looks weirdly wobbly and unproportioned is due to the fact that it was made from assembling different pieces of different machinery. The whole thing is covered by a thick layer of dust.

Keith looks around, uncertain: there is no sign of life, no footprints in the dust, no piles of blankets anywhere. It looks like…

“No one has been here in months.” Shiro says it before Keith can bring himself to think it. His voice sounds strained, like he had to physically force the words out.

“Maybe something happened and he had to leave, maybe he’s nearby-” Keith insists, but Shiro just shakes his head.

“He probably set the signal up when he found out I was coming back. Before…” he doesn’t finish the sentence, and lets himself fall on the floor, like a weight is holding him down. He is intently looking at his Altean hand open and close, like it’s the only thing in the whole wide world keeping him from falling.

“There must be something. We can’t just give up-”

“Just stop, Keith. Please.” Shiro’s voice is more high pitched than usual, so Keith does what he says, and turns around in frustration. He thinks about Adam trusting Shiro and letting the strange kid with an attitude problem into his life, about the way Adam’s lips curled up fondly every time Shiro made a particularly bad pun just to annoy the hell out of Keith, about how happy Shiro had been the first time Adam had proudly shown Keith the engagement ring on his finger, love in his eyes and sun in his smile. He thinks about Adam listening to Keith rant about his insecurities when Shiro couldn’t be there to listen, about how Adam had been the one to offer him his first cup of coffee in spite of Shiro’s protests, and about how, angry and grieving, he’d shouted at Adam when he thought Shiro was gone, how he’d told him to stay away because he had been the one to walk away, the one who did not care. Keith wishes, desperately, that he had a way to set things right, to apologise, and Shiro was right, this is all so fucking unfair.

He paces angrily, looking aimlessly all around the room, until his gaze is caught by something, a small indenture on the rock. He gets closer and studies it with attention: it looks like natural erosion, at first sight, but now that he’s closer, he can see that the small indentures follow a pattern of vertical and horizontal lines, too precise to be natural.

“Shiro, I think you should take a look at this,” he whispers. For a second, he wonders if Shiro will not get up, and just stay on the ground in that cave forever, frozen in time. But then, he can feel Shiro’s familiar presence behind him, and then, even more surprisingly, he hears him gasp.

“This is…” Shiro says, emotion clear in his voice. “Adam and I came up with a series of codes, things that only he and I could recognise, to use in case of emergency, like the interference signal.”

“What does this say?”

Shiro’s brow furrows. “It says, _Delta Base 34._ ” He turns on the radio and says, before anyone can even reply, “Pidge, do you know what Delta Base 34 is?”

“Uhm, it’s Hunk, because Pidge is a monster and she left me alone” a warm voice comes in through the intercom. He sounds excited, but Keith quickly files that as something to look into later, “but I can look that up for you.” After a few seconds, he comes back with, “It looks like it’s an isolated bunker, another remain from World War III. This is weird, because it says it’s locked, while all bunkers were left open after the end of the war, so I don’t know what that’s about,” his tony sounds slightly confused. “It’s actually not too far from when you are right now, though. I can send you its exact location?”

Keith wants to say yes, but he looks at Shiro, waiting for him to make the final decision. Shiro looks like he’s torn, until a new determination finds its place on his face.

“Please do, Hunk. We’ll go check it out.”

***

_The only thing Keith is certain about, right now, is that he doesn’t want to see anyone. He feels – angry. Lost. Sad._

_He wants to cry and run and smash things and at the same time his brain is running a hundred miles per hour because_ pilot error, my ass.

_He doesn’t know what to do, now. The past few months without Shiro? Not great, not now that he’s in dorms because Adam walked away and it would be awkward to keep on living with him after that, not now that he doesn’t know who to go to when he just feels like the whole world is running against him. The rest of his life, without Shiro? He doesn’t even know._

_The only thing he knows, right now, it’s that he doesn’t want anyone around. He just wants to be alone until the pain is numb enough that he doesn’t feel like hurting anyone who tries to talk to him._

_So he has no interest in Adam_ fucking _Wilson cornering him into a corridor, trying to talk to him about Shiro._

_“Keith-” he’s saying, and Keith is already barely listening. “Please talk to me, I understand how-”_

_“Leave me alone!” Keith shouts, pushing him away, and for a second, for just a second, he wishes he could take it back, because he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Adam like this. His eyes are red and circled with purple shades, and he looks so small, and lost. But Keith… he’s just so angry. “Leave me alone!” He repeats, even louder. “Stop acting like you care!”_

_“Keith, I-”_

_“No, you’re the one who walked away! You’re the one who didn’t care enough to stay, so why should I want to talk to you? What are you even doing here?”_

_“Because I do care!” Adam shouts, and tears are already streaming down his face. His voice sounds broken._

_“If you had,” Keith snarls, his voice as sharp as a knife, “you wouldn’t have left him. You wouldn’t have been such a fucking coward, and you’d have stayed. Leave me alone.”_

_He turns on his heels, and suddenly he’s running away. Adam doesn’t follow him._

***

Lance is restless, which isn’t really news, because he’s always restless. He’s constantly tapping his fingers against something, tapping his foot against something, fidgeting with something. There is always something, something. But now he feels like his restlessness has been hyped, because spending over a year fighting murderous aliens in space makes you used to a certain level of adrenaline, and staying on Earth while aimlessly wandering around the garrison definitely isn’t it. It’s not that he isn’t incredibly happy to be back on Earth, but right now – Keith and Shiro have disappeared to do God knows what, Hunk and Pidge are tracking their movements, Allura is still trying to get the Altean to talk to her, even Veronica is busy with whatever the MFE pilots are doing, and he’s just – here. Nervously tapping his fingers against a table and dwelling in his thoughts, thinking about his grandparents who died before he could get back to hug them one last time, thinking about how his sister risked her life to defend the Earth, thinking – no wonder he has nothing he can do, he’s the dumb one, after all. He can’t help anyone.

The door opens behind him, and he turns around to find Allura. She looks tired, and a bit frustrated.

“Hey,” Lance says, gesturing for her to sit down, “are you okay?”

She sits next to him, then rests her head in her hands. “I’m okay, I just-” she sighs, and looks at Lance like she isn’t sure what to say next.

He isn’t sure what to say either, so he tries with, “Do you want to talk about it?”

She seems, at least, relieved that he’s willing to listen. “She keeps calling Lotor’s name. The Altean who attacked us.” She specifies, like Lance thought that the one calling Lotor’s name might be Pidge. “And it’s bothering me, because not only can I not get anything useful out of her, it’s also reminding me of how stupid I was to…”

“Hey!” Lance stops her, “Don’t say that about yourself. Lotor had all of us fooled.”

“Not you.”

_Just because I was jealous of you,_ Lance doesn’t say. “It doesn’t matter. I told you before, he gave us every reason to trust him. You shouldn’t blame yourself for any of it.”

That – the thought of them trusting Lotor – makes something click in Lance’s brain.

“What did you tell her, exactly? To the Altean?”

Allura seems confused by the sudden change of subject, but she says slowly, “That she was safe from Lotor, that we would look after her,”

Suddenly, it hits Lance. “You know when I told you that you could make it if you just kept on being yourself?” Allura nods, with a sweet and melancholic smile. “Well, maybe you actually need to do the opposite.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Her brow furrows, and suddenly Lance is a little scared.

“Look, I still think you’re amazing and everything,” he says, trying to make amends, “but if I woke up from a coma or whatever in a strange place, I would either ask about someone I’m scared of, hoping they’re not here and to warn the others about it, or about someone I trust and that I want to see. If you told her that she’s safe from Lotor and didn’t get an answer, maybe that means…”

“You think she works with him?”

“I don’t know,” Lance admits. “But I’m fairly certain the only place in the galaxy where you could find Alteans is the colony Romelle talked about. Maybe she should have a go.”

Allura stays silent, clearly analysing the suggestion. Then she smiles, and looks up at Lance. “That sounds like a brilliant idea. Thank you, Lance.”

Her eyes are sparkling as she says it, and Lance’s heart does a weird thing – that is to say, it doesn’t really do anything. He’s filled with a warm fuzzy feeling in his chest, but there is no fastened heartbeat, no blood going at his ears, no desperate desire to take her hand. Instead, he just wants to smile back at her, to let her know he loves her and he’s on her side.

So he does exactly that, and replies, “Well, they do say I’m a genius, after all.” He’s not sure how much he means it, but for now, Allura’s grin is enough.

***

The entrance to Delta Base 34 is a manhole, covered in dust and protected by a password, but they find out that Hunk can manually unlock it from the Garrison. It opens with a hiss as depressurised air comes out, and Shiro and Keith climb in, descending a small ladder into the darkness. They ladder ends in a corridor, and they both jump down. Neon lights shine on the grey walls of the corridor, but it’s still so dark in comparison to the bright sun outside that Shiro’s eyes struggle to adjust. Suddenly, the sound of quick steps fills the space, and as both Shiro and Keith turn towards the source where the corridor seems to take a turn, a dark figure appears around the corner, with what appears to be a gun at the ready. They’re standing in a patch of darkness, so that Shiro can’t quite make out their features, but he can’t help but wonder, what if, _what if…_

And then, his voice cuts the air.

“Takashi?” The figure asks in a trembling voice, as he lowers his gun and steps into the light.

Shiro’s breath stops, and he finds himself unable to move, because – he’s thinner than he was then, and the left side of his face seems lighter than the rest, but the figure, undoubtedly, is…

“Adam!” Shiro cries out, and suddenly he’s not frozen anymore, suddenly he’s running, and suddenly they’re crashing into each other, laughing and crying at the same time, holding onto each other with all the strength they’ve got, foreheads touching as they both tremble with emotion. Shiro can’t help himself, and slowly, carefully so that Adam could turn him down if he wanted, he presses his lips to Adam’s. Just as carefully, as if he’s scared of doing something wrong, Adam responds to the kiss, and Shiro can feel his tears on his own face. It feels like a _welcome back._

“You’re alive,” Shiro whispers when they pull apart, still close enough to breathe the same air.

“You found me,” Adam whispers back, running his hands through Shiro’s hair, “and your hair is white.”

Shiro breaks into something between a laugh and a sob. Now that he’s closer, he sees that the reason why part of Adam’s skin is lighter is that the left side of his face is crumpled and covered in scars. His left eye is blue and glassy.

“You’ve lost an eye,” he can’t stop himself from saying, gently caressing Adam’s cheeks.

“And you’ve got a weird floating arm,” Adam replies, deadpan, and suddenly they’re both giggling like schoolchildren. “That’s fine,” Adam says.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Shiro repeats, and laughs again. He takes it all in, slowly, Adam being alive and breathing, holding him in his arms. Still slightly taller than him, still wearing glasses, still sarcastic, still beautiful.

Shiro never wants to let go, but then Adam’s gaze focuses on something on Shiro’s right, and his eyes widen. “Keith!” he shouts, and takes a tiny step back from Shiro, just enough that he can clearly see Keith, who is standing behind Shiro’s shoulder. He looks nervous and excited.

“I’m sorry about the things I said to you,” Keith says, and it sounds like he’d had the words queued up, like he’d been waiting for years to say them.

“Oh, shut up,” Adam says. “I was so worried about you. Get in here.” He gestures for Keith to join them, and suddenly all three of them are hugging, and crying, and falling in a jumbled mess of limbs on the floor and laughing, and Shiro thinks, for what might be the first time in a very, very long time, _maybe things are going to be okay._

***

“Are we… are we sure this is a good idea?” Romelle asks as they walk towards the cell where they’ve been holding the Altean prisoner.

_Not really,_ Lance wants to say, because what had looked like a brilliant idea at the time he’d suggested it has disappeared, swallowed by doubts and second thoughts.

Allura saves him from answering by saying, “We understand we’re asking a lot of you, but right now, it is our only option.”

“Yes, alright,” Romelle swallows, before a look of determination appears on her face. “I can do this. I can most definitely do this.”

Allura opens the cell door. The prisoner is sitting curled up in a corner, but she raises her head as they come in.

“Is Lotor here?” She asks, before any of them can say a word.

Romelle takes a nervous step forward. “Why do you ask?”

“I want to see Lotor.” The Altean says, then looks down, away from all of them.

“You miss him, don’t you?” Romelle asks, her voice suddenly soft. “Lotor, and life at the colony?”

The Altean’s gaze shoots up again. “You know about that?”

“Of course,” Romelle says, and carefully goes to sit next to her. “I know because that’s where I’m from.”

The Altean looks surprised, and stares at Romelle with a newfound interest. “So you know what it’s like? To have him as your saviour?”

Romelle seems to falter for a second at this, and she looks at Allura for reassurance, who nods ever so slightly. “Of course,” Romelle says, and then, as if pushing the words out is physically straining her, “I want to help you get back to him. My name is Romelle.”

“My name is Leira,” the Altean replies, slowly. “You think you can help me?”

“I want to,” Romelle looks at Leira carefully. “But I can’t, if you don’t tell me what brought you here.”

Leira looks down, then, very slowly nods. She looks at Romelle. “If you can bring me back,” she tells her, “I will tell you my story.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter features a lot of talking, and a very confused Lance.
> 
> The response to the last chapter was so warm! Thank you thank you thank you. I hope you like this one as well (for the record, I think this is the shortest chapter I've written so far, yeet), and I hope I will see you next week with the third chapter ^^  
> Btw, you can come to shout at me on tumblr at officiallyadoptingshinyahiiragi.tumblr.com (I don't know how computers work so just copy paste I guess?), and if anyone's interested, I am still looking for an editor. I don't remember if I said this with last chapter but English isn't my first language, so help would be greatly appreciated.


	3. The Unbury Your Gays Arc, part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adam: don't die in space  
> Shiro: uhm

When they finally head back to the Black Lion, they’re all blinded by the bright light of the desert. Keith takes one last look at the manhole, and he thinks, funny how the world is. They entered it scared and full of expectations, and now they’ve come out happier than they’ve been in a long time. Adam also turns to look at it, an unreadable expression on his face.

“Are you okay?” Shiro asks him.

“Yeah,” Adam turns to look at him. “It’s just-” he lets out something between a laugh and a sigh, “I’ve practically lived here for four years. I wonder how the world has gone on without me.”

“I know,” Shiro says, and he’s gazing at Adam so intensely that Keith feels the urge to look away, like he’s interrupting a private moment. “I ask myself the same.”

Adam gives him a small smile. “So, this is the Black lion of Voltron,” he glances at Keith, “and you pilot it.”

“Yeah,” Keith nods, “Shiro used to, but then he disappeared, so I took over.”

“ ‘But then he…’” Adam repeats, then looks at Shiro. “I can tell there’s a lot we need to talk about.”

“That’s true.” Shiro agrees, then shows him in the Black Lion.

They all get in and head home, as if they’ve been blessed by some insanely fortunate trick of fate.

***

“Adam, how-” Keith can’t refrain himself from asking as they are flying back to the Garrison. “How did you-”

“How did I survive?” Adam finishes for him.

Keith nods, and in the corner of his vision, he can see Shiro perk up as well.

At that, Adam sighs, and says, “Honestly, I got lucky. My ship got shot down in a matter of minutes, and I crashed relatively close to the bunker. I don’t-” perhaps as an unconscious reflex, he raises his hand to touch the left side of his face, where he’s covered in burn scars. “I don’t remember a lot of it. I was in a lot of pain.”

Keith glances sideways at Shiro, and he can see that he’s desperate to reach out to Adam. His Altean hand is closed into a fist.

“I somehow dragged myself to the bunker, I just kept thinking-” Adam stops, and Keith recognises his expression as the one he does when he decides if something is important enough to need to be said. Then his lips set into a straight line, as he makes a decision. “I kept thinking about you,” he tells Shiro. “That you were alive, and that I would be damned if I died before seeing you again.”

Shiro, then, seems to lose all his composure, and walks over to Adam. Very delicately, like he’s scared of breaking him, he takes Adam’s hand in his. Adam holds it back, and Keith wonders if his eyes are filling with tears or if it’s just a reflection of the light.

“The bunker had one of those pods that they made, to purify from radiation.” Adam’s voice is slightly high-pitched, but firm, “I didn’t know if they also helped with burns, but by that time I was so lost that I didn’t really think about anything, and just threw myself in it. It turns out they do, but it only let me out three months later, and when it did, the Galra had fully taken over Earth. The bunker was shielded so that only un-coded communication would come in, so I barely got news of anything. I didn’t know what condition the Garrison was in, and even though the burns had healed, I was adapting to not being able to see out of one eye. So I just… stayed.”

“For four years?” Keith asks. He thinks of when he and Krolia were stranded for two years on that planetoid, and how at least then they’d been together. The fact that Adam had spent for years alone in that bunker, without seeing anyone, was… astonishing.

“Yeah,” Adam says, his tone neutral, “I came out once or twice, to set up the antenna, and those times I thought that staying in there any longer would make me go mad. And then I would always come back, and wait.” He looks at Shiro, and Keith can tell the _for you_ is implied. “A while ago I got a transmission saying that the Earth had been liberated, but I couldn’t tell if it was true or just a trick to drive out all those who had somehow escaped the Galra. I was just deciding what to do, whether I should stay or go. And I was running out of provisions, so… great timing, the two of you.” His lips curl up a bit at the end of the sentence, as he shoots a glance at Keith and then at Shiro again.

“I have a serious question,” Shiro says. “Did your glasses survive the crash?”

Adam snorts. “No, but these are my old prescription glasses, and I had them with me in case of emergency, so… don’t make that face, Takashi. Using a wrong prescription when you’ve already lost an eye is just another drop in the sea. And you’re one to talk, what, with the scar and the floating arm and the white hair.”

“Keith has a scar too.”

“Don’t rope me into this,” Keith says, and Adam laughs out loud.

“I missed you two,” he says. “I really missed you.”

“Yeah,” Keith says, “We missed you too.”

***

As soon as Keith and Shiro warn them that they are back at the Garrison, Pidge shouts at Lance to go get them and take them to the meeting room, so they can debrief them on everything they’ve found out. Lance complains but does as he’s told, and meets them right as they are coming in from the deposit where they’ve been holding the lions.

“Keith, Shiro, hurry up, we have-” he starts. Except they’re not alone, but accompanied by a stranger with glasses, slightly taller than Shiro. His skin would be brown, but it’s a bit lighter on his left side, where his face and neck are covered in messy scars. Behind the glasses, his left eye is light blue. “Wait, who are you?” Lance can’t stop himself from asking, confused by the stranger’s presence.

The strangers stares him up and down, then says, deadpan, “You’re Lance.”

“How do you-”

The stranger glances at Keith, but doesn’t reply to the question. Instead, he offers Lance his hand. “I’m Adam,” he says.

“Right.” Lance says, and keeps staring at him as if that would magically give him the answers to all the questions he’s dying to ask, like, okay but who _are_ you and how do you know my name and also who _are_ you.

“What were you saying?” Keith says, his voice hurried.

Lance tries to look at him like a lost puppy, hoping it will get him some answers, but Keith’s gaze is relentless. So instead he takes a deep breath, and says, “The Altean we found in the warrior. She told us…” he thinks about how she quietly recounted her story to Romelle, and realises, he doesn’t know how to explain it to them. “Well, we were about to debrief everyone. We were just waiting for you.”

Shiro nods. “Keith, you go ahead,” he says. “I’m taking Adam to see a doctor, then I’ll catch up.”

“Oh, please,” the stranger – Adam – says, “I stayed four years without a doctor. I’m pretty sure I can survive another couple of hours, Takashi.”

And that’s what really does it for Lance, because he’s fairly certain that he’s never heard anyone – not Sam or Matt Holt, not Allura, not even Keith – refer to Shiro as _Takashi._ He gapes at Keith to point out the shocking occurrence, who on the other hand, seems entirely unfazed.

“You should rest,” it’s all Shiro says, also apparently not surprised by Adam calling him by his first name. The name his parents gave him. The name his parents called him when he was nothing but a screaming and probably surprising muscly baby. That name. The name no one calls him by.

Adam raises his hand. “Again, practically spent the last four years resting. Whatever it is you need to talk about, I’m coming with.” He is looking at Shiro so intensely, so fiercely, that Lance feels the need to look away. He notices that Keith also seems to have found a sudden and enrapturing interest in a corner of the corridor. “We said that there were a lot of things we’d need to talk about,” Adam insists, “so we might as well start catching up now.”

Shiro looks back at him, his brow furrowed and his gaze equally intense. Lance has no idea what’s going on.

“You’re right,” Shiro says eventually, and a small smile appears on Adam’s face. “Lance, lead the way.”

***

As soon as they walk into the meeting room, they’re assaulted by Pidge, who shouts, “Wait, aren’t you Adam?”

Keith should have foreseen this. He should have realised that waltzing into the garrison with one of their best pilots, who had been considered dead for four years, would probably have caused the kind of chaos they couldn’t really afford at the moment. He thinks, though, that even if he had foreseen it, Shiro wasn’t in a condition to part from Adam any time soon, so there wasn’t much he could have done to prevent it.

However, he could not have expected Pidge, of all people, to be the first to react.

“I am,” Adam says, pushing his glasses back. “And you are…?”

“I’m Pidge. Sam Holt’s daughter. I thought you were dead.”

“So did everyone else. I’m not. Surprise.”

It’s strange, watching them interact like this. They have two different edges of cutting sarcasm, and Keith can’t help but think they will either get along, or try to kill each other. For a few seconds he wonders which it will be, but then a wide smile opens on Pidge’s face.

“My dad and Matt will be so happy to see you,” she says, “they’re on their way here.”

Adam smiles back, and doesn’t have time to say anything before Iverson, who’s also gotten up, goes to shake his hand. “Wilson,” he says, his tone glacial, “we are very glad to see you alive. I trust you will explain the circumstances of your, uhm…”

“Survival?” Adam continues for him. “Yes. Once you’re done talking about whatever it is that you need to talk about.”

“Okay, who the hell is this guy?” Lance asks, his voice low enough that only Keith can hear him.

Keith turns towards him, and wonders how he would explain it to him. For a split second, he wonders how Lance will react once he actually finds out – it’s _Lance,_ of course he wouldn’t be a dick about it, and yet. And yet a low panic settles on Keith stomach, with the name _what if Lance is a dick about it._

Allura also gets up, clearing her voice, and Keith thinks _finally, we can get this started._ Instead, she also walks towards Adam, and offers him his hand.

“I’m Allura,” she says, “it’s wonderful to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

So Allura did know, Keith realises. He wonders when is it that Shiro told her.

“That’s…” Adam takes Allura’s hand, but looks at Shiro, at a loss. In another occasion it would be almost funny, because Keith can’t recall another time when he saw Adam truly taken aback by something. But this is the first time Adam meets new people since he got shot out of the sky four years earlier, and Keith realises just how overwhelming all of this must be for him.

“Adam, this is Allura,” Shiro explains, “Princess of Altea.” He defensively puts his hand on Adam’s shoulder as he takes a step forward, and says, “I’d say that’s enough for now. What is it that you wanted to tell us about?”

Allura nods solemnly, then tells the whole room, “We’ve gathered more information on the warrior that we fought after defeating the Galran fleet, and the news is… quite disconcerting.”

Shiro gestures for her to sit at the head of the table, and she gives him a small smile before going, leader to leader. Slowly, they all sit back down, and Shiro gently leads Adam to sit next to him, at Allura’s right. That’s where Sam Holt and Allura usually sit, which leads Keith to realise that once Sam and Matt get there, there won’t be enough seats for everyone. He stands around awkwardly for a few seconds, then decides to go stand behind the other Paladins and leave his chair to Matt. Lance stares at him, with his eyes half closed.

“Aren’t you going to sit down?” He asks through gritted teeth.

“If I do, there won’t be seats for Matt and Mr. Holt.” Keith replies, quickly glancing at Shiro and Adam.

Lance follows his gaze, then looks back at Keith with his lips pursed as if he’s deep in thought. “Come here,” he says after a few seconds, his voice a bit low. “We can squish, we’re both skinny enough.”

Keith can feel his whole body tighten as he stares back at Lance, who also looks a bit surprised with the words that just came out of his mouth. Nevertheless, he moves a bit to the left, and nods to the space he has freed on his chair. Keith swallows the lump in his throat. “Alright,” it’s all he says.

It’s… tight. There’s not a lot of space, and Lance’s thigh rests uncomfortably against Keith’s, which is making his throat go dry and his ears go red and his hands get sweaty, and to make matters worse, Adam is watching them attentively from the other end of the table. He’s squinting, and Keith can’t tell if it’s because he’s that interested in his and Lance’s seating situation, or if he just can’t see very well with the wrong glasses on, and Keith makes a mental note to tell him exactly that. On Keith’s left, Pidge snickers. This was a terrible idea, but he doesn’t have a lot of time to dwell on it, because then Matt and Sam Holt finally come in from the door behind them. Matt’s hair is tied into a bun, which makes him look positively scruffy, and Sam looks like he spent the night working on plans for the Atlas (which he probably did), so they both give the impression of wanting to be anywhere but in this meeting. Except, their faces lighten when they see Adam, and suddenly there’s more handshaking and more hugging, and Sam Holt is apologising profusely while Adam shakes his head and assures him that _it’s fine, it wasn’t his fault_. Eventually, the excitement dies out a little bit, and Matt and Sam go sit down and Allura, _finally,_ clears her throat and starts speaking.

“Her name is Leira. Our first mistake,” she says, “was assuming that she was acting on her own. She was asking for Lotor, and we thought she might have been running away from him, so we ensured her that she was safe. It was Lance who realised we might have been wrong, so he thought we should try to let Romelle speak to her, since she comes from Lotor’s Altean colony. And that’s when she decided to tell us her story.”

“It was your idea?” Keith turns towards Lance.

“Uhm, yeah,” Lance replies, looking down at his hands. He looks so humbled then, no boasting or trace of fake over-confidence, it makes Keith’s heart throb. He gives Lance a small smile, and Lance looks up then, crossing his eyes with Keith’s and shyly returning his smile. Their faces are really close now, same chair and all, and Keith’s palms are really sweaty. Nervously, he looks back at Allura.

“She comes from Lotor’s Altean colony-”

“Hold on,” Pidge interrupts her, “I thought Kolivan said that when they went to look for it, there was nothing.”

“That’s because he moved it,” Allura explains, “Shortly after we all got into the Quintessence Field. He must have gotten out much earlier than we did, because he had the time to move the colony to a different planet, and then-” she takes a deep breath, “whatever he learned in the field must have helped him build the warrior that Leira came in, because he started looking for a pilot for it. He tested several Alteans, and Leira was the one that was chosen.”

“So that means,” Shiro says, his voice sounding like he’s thinking out loud, “that he succeeded in creating a second Voltron. Something that could even defeat the original one.”

“I wouldn’t call it a second Voltron,” Coran argues, from where he’s sitting on Adam’s right. Adam’s gaze flicks between the two of them. He looks like he’s doing his very best to focus on everything that’s being said, extrapolating information without context. “More like a whole different warrior, able to defeat Voltron. Voltron’s core ideal was that it had to be co-piloted.”

Shiro nods, and shifts his gaze back to Allura, “Leira seems to be… not fully aware of her circumstances. She seems to revere Lotor, but when we asked why, she couldn’t come up with an answer. She’s dead set on finding him again. It looks like he somehow…” Allura looks down, her voice faltering for the first time since she started her tale. “well, he charmed her to do everything he wants her to.”

“And she means that literally,” Lance intervenes, “she’s like, brainwashed.”

A tired but unsurprised sigh runs through the room, and Allura puts her hands down on the table. “That’s not the only concerning news she had,” she continues. Another sigh, louder this time, shakes the room. “She says that they all noticed Lotor has been different since he moved the colony. More… savage.”

“He did seem to have lost his head a bit, when we were in the Quintessence Field,” Pidge nods.

“The Quintessence drove him crazy,” Coran agrees, “like it did with Honerva. Well, Haggar.”

“That’s the other news,” Allura says, her voice heated, “Leira said that he returned with a powerful witch. We can only assume that’s Haggar.”

“So they’re working together now?” Hunk asks. “Well, that’s just great.”

“That seems the most likely conclusion,” Allura agrees, and she sounds tired. Keith can’t blame her. The thought of Lotor working with Haggar, though, lights a spark in Keith’s head.

“Do you think they are working in secret?” He says, and he can see the rest of the room turning towards him. He’s aware that squished in the chair with Lance he must look absolutely ridiculous, but he goes on talking, hoping that the weight of his words distracts them from his unfortunate position. “Lotor’s generals, Ezor and Zethrid, don’t know where he is. Acxa confirmed that.”

“And how sure are we that we can trust her?” Lance says, inexplicably tensing.

“She saved our lives,” Keith says, and, wow, their faces are really close again. “That was a pretty big hint.”

“So did Lotor,” Lance replies, his cheeks going red in frustration, “multiple times, in fact. We all saw how well that turned out.”

“Listen, I’m not saying we have to make her the new leader of Voltron,” Keith argues, because something about Lance’s flushed face is really bothering him, “but she helped Krolia and Kolivan, and they think we can trust her. She’s been on Earth for days now and she has not done anything suspicious, even Iverson agrees. So what’s your problem?”

“I don’t-” Lance says, and then stops, as if the last part of the question left him baffled. He looks down. “Oh, forget it.”

“Regardless,” Sam Holt intervenes, “If Haggar and Lotor are working together, and Lotor really has managed to harness enough quintessence to make that warrior you had to fight, then,” he looks grimly at the rest of the table, “the consequences for the universe might be catastrophic.”

“They need to be stopped,” Matt agrees, “before, you know, they decide it’s time to try to attack Earth again.”

“Not necessarily,” Allura gestures for them to slow down. “I don’t think Lotor has any interest in Earth in particular, and I doubt he cares to avenge Sendak,” she bites her lip, then adds, “but he will want more and more quintessence, if he’s gone crazy like Haggar. He might try to drain the universe, and nothing could convince him to stop. So, he could get back here, eventually.”

“We can’t have another fight on Earth,” Iverson cuts in, his voice low, “we lost too much already.” His gaze, perhaps unconsciously, falls on Adam who lets out a strangled laugh.

“Yeah, you tell me.” He says. Iverson’s gaze stays on him, which seems to imply that he expects him to provide everyone with the story of how he survived the Galra attack. Adam sighs. “Stop staring at me and ask,” he says, just a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“How did you survive, and why did you not make contact until now?”

“I did,” Adam’s voice is sharp, “you just didn’t realise.”

He glances at Shiro, who says, his tone firm, “You don’t have to tell them again now, if you don’t want to.”

Adam’s face softens a little. “It’s fine,” he says, and starts telling the story he already told Keith and Shiro. This time, he sounds a lot more detached, the tale less personal, but his shoulders are a bit slumped. Keith realises he’s exhausted, but nevertheless he carries on, telling everyone about the bunker, and his eye, and the codes he’d left. When he’s done, he looks at Iverson challengingly, daring him to complain. The Commander has the decency to look down, and an awkward silence falls on the table.

“Wow,” Lance says, “that was… a lot.”

Adam lets out a snort. “Thank you.”

“Coming back to the actual issue at hand,” Sam says, looking at Iverson as if he’s scolding him, “the Commander makes a good point. We can’t afford another fight on Earth.”

“Then we’ll have to take it somewhere else,” Shiro says. He’s been quiet the whole time, carefully looking at Adam and, every once in a while, at everyone else in the room. “We’ll have to find Lotor and stop him before he can do too much damage.” His voice sounds strained, and Keith knows that it’s costing him to say it, especially now that he just found Adam again.

“So… we go back to space?” Hunk asks. His voice sounds strained too. Keith feels Lance slump a little in the chair.

“It sounds like the best possible option,” Iverson agrees, “out of several bad ones.”

Hunk nods, and the Paladins all look at each other, in silent agreement.

“We have to decide who’s going to go, then,” Iverson continues, “we are not sending you on your own.”

“I want to help,” Matt cuts in, before anyone else can reply.

“We will need someone from the resistance too,” Keith says, thinking out loud.

“What about Leira?” Allura intervenes. “Should we take her with us?”

“Okay, this is enough.” Shiro’s voice is firm as he interrupts them. “There’s been enough decision making for today. Adam needs to see a doctor, and I think we could all use some time to think about this. Let’s meet back here tomorrow, with everyone who should be involved.” His tone is final, and a murmur of agreement runs through the room. Adam turns towards him, with what looks like a small grateful smile on his face.

“You’re really not going to tell me who that guy is?” Lance asks, just while people start to leave and Adam and Shiro get out of the room together.

“Not now,” Keith replies, _not now that_ _I’m practically sitting on top of you._

“I don’t really know who he is either,” Hunk adds, looking at Keith with wide eyes.

“We’ll tell you later,” Pidge decides, “but I want cake.”

Lance makes an unimpressed face, but he says, “Fine. Cake in exchange for the identity and backstory of the handsome and mysterious guy. You’re evil.”

Pidge smiles and gets out of her chair, and Hunk follows her example. Keith turns to look back at Lance, to find his blue eyes staring back at him. He gets up, faster than he needs to.

***

For a top scientific and military institution that saved the world, Shiro would expect the Garrison doctors to have at least of bit of respect towards their veterans, but the medic who visits Adam is about as helpful as the one who had warned Shiro of his upcoming death had been. She visits Adam like he’s personally betrayed her by surviving, then concludes that he’s well, if a bit dehydrated, and that his burns have healed and there isn’t much she can do about the scars or the eye. She finishes the visit by handing Adam new prescription glasses, and he blinks a few times before focusing on Shiro.

“Wow,” he says, “I can actually see your face now. More or less. I still have no depth perception, so I couldn’t tell if your nose got longer. Did your nose get longer?”

Shiro lets out a soft laugh. “No, but maybe that would have compensated for my arm getting shorter.”

Adam laughs. “Come on, get me out of here,” he says, pushing him with his shoulder a little bit.

Not really sure of where to go next, he leads Adam to the room he’s been sleeping in since they got back to Earth, stopping to pick up a clean uniform on the way, so that Adam can take off his worn out one. When he gets out of Shiro’s bathroom, he’s clean, and looks a bit more relaxed. He goes to sit on Shiro’s bed, and Shiro sits on his right, and for a few minutes they just stay there quietly, thriving in each other’s presence.

“Sorry if that was a lot,” Shiro eventually breaks the silence.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Adam waves him off, “I knew what it would be like and it was I who insisted on coming.” There’s a small crease between his eyebrows as he says it.

“But it upset you,” Shiro points out, and Adam sighs.

Just then, Shiro can see how badly Adam wants to lie and pretend that it didn’t, but Adam swore to himself years ago that he would never, ever lie about the things that were important, so he says, “I just realized how much has happened in your life and how little has happened in mine,” he looks away from Shiro, down at his own clenched hands. His left hand is also covered in scars, that seem to continue past his wrist. “I spent the last four years closed in a bunker, Takashi. You spent… I don’t even know how long in space, fighting to save the world. I wonder how much you’ve changed, and how much you have… moved on.”

Shiro leans forward, softly placing his hand on Adam’s shoulder. “You’re right,” he nods. “I have changed. But moved on? No. Not from you.”

Adam shudders under his touch, and takes his glasses off with one hand to dry his eyes with the other. It’s almost a strange sight, because Shiro thinks he can count on the palm of his hands the number of times he’s seen Adam cry – when he came to say goodbye before he left for Kerberos, and before that, when they’d agreed that breaking off the engagement was the best for both of them. His eyes had filled with tears of joy when Shiro had proposed, and one time he had broken down on Shiro’s shoulder after his mother’s funeral. Adam used to joke that he was too practical to cry, but of course, they have both changed.

“Let’s talk,” Adam says, after a few minutes.

“Let’s talk.” Shiro agrees.

And they do. Shiro tells Adam of Kerberos, of the Galra fighting pits, of when Keith came to his rescue accompanied by four other Garrison cadets, about how they’d flown to the other end of the universe on a blue lion and found a beautiful alien princess who had called them defenders of the universe. He tells him of fighting among the stars and seeing beautiful planets, he tells him of Haggar and of dying in space and of how his conscience had been transferred into his clone.

At that, Adam almost laughs. “Hold on, hold on,” he says, gesturing widely. “You died in space?”

Shiro looks down and swallows. “Uhm. Yeah.”

“ _Takashi!”_ Adam shouts. “That was the _one_ thing I told you not to do!”

“I tried my best?” Shiro tries, and Adam shakes his head, baffled. “Are you mad?” Shiro asks.

“I mean, I don’t think you purposefully died in space just to spite me,” Adam says, like the answer is obvious. “And what matters to me is that you came back.”

Shiro smiles, because he’s so lucky to have Adam back, and goes on with his story. He talks about Allura, about how she’s kind and regal and full of resources, and about how smart Pidge is and how brave Hunk is, and about how Lance is selfless and witty, and he tells him about Keith, about Krolia and the Blade of Marmora and him becoming the leader of Voltron.

“Wait, wait a second,” Adam interrupts him. “Are you telling me that Keith – _our_ Keith, the kinda emo guy with the attitude and the mullet, is half-alien? And he’s found his mum?”

“Yes,” Shiro says. “Her name is Krolia, she works with the resistance against the Galra. She’s around the Garrison somewhere.”

“Wow, okay,” Adam exhales, his head in his hands, “Just… just give me a few seconds to take that in. Did you say there was also a space wolf somewhere?”

Shiro goes on talking. In return, Adam tells him of the bunker, of desperately finding ways to pass the time, of dangerous walks taken in the middle of the night and look at the stars and think, _Takashi_ is coming.

More than two hours later, when they’ve both ran out of stories and tears and their throats are dry, they go back to sitting silently on the edge of the bed, pinkies touching. In a way, it’s like they’re back to when they’d just gotten together, and were just learning to test out their interactions.

“When I left you,” Adam says after a while, his voice soft. “I thought I was doing the best thing for the both of us. I only realised how wrong I was after you left for Kerberos, and when I thought you were dead, all I wanted was for you to somehow magically come back. And maybe then you were fine, maybe you weren’t dying anymore, and we could spend the rest of our lives together. And… despite everything that’s happened since then, now I’ve got everything I’ve ever wanted, and I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t know what to do either,” Shiro confesses. “But I haven’t been as happy as I am right now, being back with you, in a very long time.”

“I thought you’d died,” Adam’s voice breaks. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Slowly, gently, Shiro takes Adam’s hand. “I thought the same of you. But you could never lose me. And we are both alive.”

“Yeah, we are.” Adam squeezes Shiro’s hand. “Let’s do this slowly, okay?”

Shiro nods, because he had expected nothing less. “Of course.” He says, and then Adam is hugging him fiercely. Shiro lays his head on Adam’s shoulder. He feels warmer than he has in so, so long.

“Takashi?” Adam whispers into Shiro’s ear. “Can we sleep?”

“Yes.” Shiro whispers back. “Let’s sleep.”

They fall asleep at the lullaby of each other’s breath, still holding each other, and things are good.

***

Lance slams a box on the table in front of Pidge. “Come on, who is Adam?”

She opens the box, and takes out what looks like chocolate cake. She considers it for a second, then says, before Keith can get a word in, “Shiro’s ex fiancé.”

Lance’s mouth falls wide open. “What,” he says.

“I thought you said he was his co-pilot,” Hunk interrupts.

“I mean, I did,” Pidge replies, before taking a bite straight out of the cake. “I thought if Shiro hadn’t said anything, I shouldn’t have ratted him out. But now he’s back, so I’m assuming you were gonna find out soon anyway.”

“What,” Lance repeats, his brain clearly still processing. That drives Keith _insane._

“What, Lance?” He explodes. “What are you having trouble wrapping your head around?”

Lance’s gaze confusedly focuses on Keith and he says, very slowly, “Wait, you think I’m being a dick about this.”

“I don’t know, are you being a dick about it?” Keith replies flippantly.

“I – no,” Lance says, and he looks down, his face surprisingly red. “I just thought – I didn’t know – I thought I was-”

Pidge, next to Lance, is clearly dying to say something, but for whatever reason she exchanges a look with Hunk and keeps it in. “Do you think they’ll get back together?” She asks Keith, instead.

“I mean, probably,” Keith replies. Adam and Shiro had been disgustingly in love. It’s very unlikely that now that they’re both alive and well, they won’t be again. “Wait, how do you know about this?”

“Matt,” her tone implies that it’s obvious. “Did you know that Allura knew it too?”

“No,” Keith confesses. The Princess disappeared with Coran after the meeting, maybe looking for some Altean company that wasn’t a brain-washed Lotor worshipper. He wonders when is it that Shiro told her. He wonders if it was a time when Shiro needed support, and didn’t think that Keith could give it to him.

“I still don’t understand how he knew my name,” Lance says, and apparently the cogs in his brain have started to turn again, even if his face is still a bit flushed.

Keith wants to run out of the room, both because the red on Lance’s cheeks looks frustratingly endearing, and because he knows _exactly_ why Adam knows Lance’s name. “He was a teacher at the Garrison,” he says instead, “he probably heard about you from some other teacher.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” Lance nods. “Anyway, I think it’s really cool that Shiro found his boyfriend. I just didn’t know he had one, is all.” He says it with a small smile, and it doesn’t sound like he’s saying it to overcompensate for his reaction from earlier. It sounds like he’s genuinely happy, and a bit surprised. On instinct, Keith smiles back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It's mostly a static chapters but there is finally some 〜 plot revelations! 〜 And also, Shiro and Adam get to actually talk, because, boy. They need it.  
> Good news is, I'm still on schedule with the writing, so you'll get an update next Saturday as well! I've also written the two chapters I considered most difficult, so *hopefully* everything is going to go well.  
> I am fully aware I haven't replied to the comments on the last chapter which I'm sorry for, I hope to get to them soon but anyway I read them all and I really appreciated the support, so thank you, and I will see you next week!
> 
> Next chapters features some preparations, and for the first time, Adam's point of view!


	4. The Space Shenanigans Arc, part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> iverson: yeah adam should probably like. stay here since you can't pilot  
> adam: do you ever shut the fuck up

The following morning, the meeting room is more crowded than Adam has ever seen it in over ten years at the Garrison, and it’s all a bit overwhelming. And it isn’t only the fact that he hasn’t been around this many people at the same time in at least four years, it’s that a bunch of them are clearly looking – well, not human. And it’s not that Takashi hasn’t told him about Keith’s Galra mother or about his space wolf, it’s just that seeing them in person, as if it was completely normal, it’s a bit terrifying, considering that his only contact with the Galra was when they shot him out of the sky causing him to lose an eye and almost burn alive, so – yes, he’s a little overwhelmed. And it isn’t just the aliens, and the fact that there is so many people he doesn’t know (seriously, why are there so many kids? When did the Garrison absorb Takashi’s knack for collecting children?), it’s also that through all of this, Takashi is right next to him, and he looks like the perfect, natural leader of this colourful mass. Adam has always known Takashi was destined for greatness, for more than just breaking garrison records, but he thought he would be by his side when he reached it, and now it feels like everything has happened without him.

But then Takashi, after smiling good morning at a man with pointed ears and red hair (Adam is fairly sure he was also there yesterday, but at that time he had been far too overwhelmed to even process the ears or the strange marks on his face), turns to him with his eyes sparkling and calmly starts explaining who everyone in the room is, and Adam thinks, _maybe what really matters is that we are together now._

Eventually, after a lot of shouting and confusion, Takashi manages to gather the attention of everyone in the room, and explains everything to those who hadn’t been there yesterday, even though Adam can tell from their faces that they all know exactly what’s going on.

“Participation to this mission will be strictly voluntary,” he says, once he’s given the room a run-down of the situation, “we don’t want to force anyone to come with us. We will probably be going against forces that are unheard of, and we can’t know how many of us will return. We can’t ensure that it will be safe.”

Adam knows that Takashi will go, of course. He’s told him this already, it was one of the things they talked about last night. Still, the idea leaves Adam uneasy.

A boy, who can’t be much older than Keith is (no, really, why are there so many kids?), is the first to take a step forward. Takashi has described him to Adam as the leader of the MFE pilots, which are fully operational now, because of course they are.

“We’re coming,” he says. “With the MFEs. We’ve already talked about it.”

Three other kids behind him nod solemnly. _They’re all so young_ , Adam can’t help but think, _and they’ve already fought a war._

He can’t help but notice that Takashi also seems slightly saddened by the prospect, but nevertheless, he nods. “Thank you,” he says, “for having our back.”

“If they’re going,” a girl says, from the other side of the room, “I’m coming too. They’d get themselves into trouble without me.” She has brown skin and cropped brown hair, and her eyes are fierce behind her glasses. Adam recognises her as Lance’s sister, and makes a mental note to thank Keith, because with all the times he’s heard about that kid, he’s one of the few truly familiar faces in the room.

“No, no way,” the kid in question says. He’s not sharing a chair with Keith today, since they’re all standing, but Adam notices that they’re still standing pretty close to each other. “You’ve risked your life enough times as it is.”

“Kettle calling the pot black,” the girl -Veronica? Adam thinks it might be Veronica – dismisses him. “I’m serious. I’ve been administering them in other missions, and I was there when we finally defeated the Galra. I’m more than qualified. Plus,” her voice gets a bit softer, “I’m not letting my little brother go to space on his own anymore.”

Lance goes red for head to toe. “Veronica-” he starts.

“No, I’m serious,” she interrupts him, “you’re not going on your own. Mum and Dad will kill me.”

“ _Veronica!_ ” Lance repeats, louder this time and possibly even more red. Adam can’t help but notice that Keith is glancing sideways at him, like he’s pretending not to pay attention. Boy, this is _fun._

“Veronica, are you sure?” Takashi asks, and she nods.

“Yes.” Her voice is final.

“Alright, then. You were incredibly valuable to us on the Atlas. Thank you.” She smiles a bit, and then raises her eyebrow at Lance. He groans, but doesn’t complain any further.

“We should probably come too,” another voice says, and Adam follows it to who is, undoubtedly, a Galra. He can feel himself stiffen, which is strange, because he’s never actually seen a Galra up-close and he _knows_ that this must be Keith’s mother, that she’s one of the good guys, and yet, suddenly, it’s like the left side of his face is burning again. He feels, very lightly, Takashi’s fingers graze his hand and he blinks a few times, finally able to focus on the conversation again.

 “-get in touch with the Blade of Marmora,” the Galra’s woman is saying when he snaps back into focus, “and we’re the most qualified for that.” Another Galra next to her, a man, is nodding in agreement.

“Yes,” Shiro agrees. “You should probably come with us.”

“Hold on,” Matt says, taking a step forward. His hair is longer now, but he still looks like a nerd. “I want to come too.”

“We need you here,” his father stops him. “If Krolia and Kolivan are both going, then you need to stay as a mediator with the resistance.”

Matt looks ready to complain, but something in the way Sam is looking at him seems to discourage him. “Alright,” he mutters.

“I want to come,” Adam cuts in, before even stopping to think about it. The thought has been on the back of his mind for hours, since the meeting yesterday concluded that they would need to go to space again, it found strength when Takashi said he would go, and now it has taken full form.

“Adam…” Takashi says slowly, turning to look at him with a slight crease between his eyebrows.

“I was one of the garrison’s best pilots,” Adam insists.

“You won’t be able to fly anymore,” Iverson has been quiet for the whole meeting, but now his words are harsh. “Not without an eye, not without readjusting, and definitely not in a mission where precision and reflexes will be of the essence.”

“You should look after yourself,” Takashi adds, which is his way of saying, _he has a point,_ but most of all, _I’m worried about you._

“It’s true,” Adam admits, because it’s not like he hasn’t thought about it in the past four years, “I can’t pilot anymore. But my experience and my skills still count for something. I can provide support, and training, especially considering that our fate seems to rest on the hands of so many kids.” He looks at Takashi, and insists, “I’ve made up my mind about this. You know you can’t change it.”

Takashi closes his eyes for a second, and when he reopens them it’s with a spark of pride and resignation that he says, “Okay, then. But you will not put yourself in any dangerous situations, if you’re specifically asked not to.”

“Of course, Commander,” Adam replies with a smirk, and he can see amusement flicker in Takashi’s eyes.

“There’s something else we need to discuss,” this time it’s the Altean Princess, Allura, to cut in, and all eyes turn toward her. She’s young, but there’s something about the way she holds herself, the way she talks calmly and confidently, that demands attention. She’s magnetic. “Leira. I wonder if she should come with us.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” Pidge, who looks just like her brother did at her age, replies. “She did try to kill us, and she is technically working for Lotor.”

“I know,” Allura looks down, deep in thought, “she will be confined, of course, but if our objective is to find the Altean Colony, then she should come with us, so that we can take her back there. We promised.”

“How can you know you can trust her?” Iverson asks, which makes Adam want to roll his eyes. It’s not that Adam doesn’t like Iverson. It’s that when he’d come with the news that the Kerberos mission had gone south due to a ‘pilot error’, Adam had called him a lying son of a bitch. And when Sam Holt had come back with the news that Shiro was alive, and that the Garrison had tried to keep him quarantined, Adam had called Iverson a lying son of a bitch, and then also thrown coffee in his face. The coffee hadn’t been very hot and Adam had gotten off with a warning, but their relationship had definitely been on thin ice since then.

“We can’t,” Takashi says. “But Allura is right. Her place is on that colony, and we promised.”

“It seems to me,” Iverson’s tone is sharp, “that you have made a habit of being too trusting.”

Adam looks around the room, searching for any cup of coffee he might use to peacefully prove a point, but it looks like there won’t be any coffee spilling today. What a shame.

“When your alternative is strapping people to tables to do God knows what, I’d say that’s not something you can rebuke,” he says instead, sharply. Oh, how he wishes he had a cup of coffee.

“I’m asking this to all of those who have decided to come on the mission with us,” Takashi continues, after shooting a glance of amusement at Adam, “do you agree to take Leira with us?”

Scattered yes’s go around the room. Adam shrugs, since he doesn’t really know anything about this Leira but he trusts Takashi on this, because he’s the love of his life. And also, because he just really wants to annoy Iverson.

“Then it’s decided,” Takashi says, and Adam can see that Iverson is looking to slam his head against the nearest wall, but he doesn’t say anything, and silence falls upon the room.

“I want to come too,” says another voice after a few seconds, kinda shyly. A girl who is most definitely Galra takes a step forward, and looks around the room, awkwardly. “I want to help. And I know Lotor well.” She’s not looking at Takashi while she speaks, but at Keith, which is something Adam labels as _something to look into later._

“Yeah, maybe a bit too well,” Lance interrupts her, his voice probably louder than it needs to be. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Allura?” He turns to the Princess for her opinion.

Her pointed ears go a bit red, but her voice is firm when she says, “I don’t have an issue with Acxa coming with us. If she can help us stop Lotor.”

Lance rolls his eyes, but before he can say another word, another one of the Voltron kids – Hunk? Yeah, must be Hunk – interrupts him. “She did save our lives, Lance.”

“I think she should come,” Keith adds. He’s looking at Lance, attentively. This _is_ fun. “She has helped us before, and she knows Lotor. I trust her.”

Lance sputters, waving his arms in the air. “Fine,” he mutters eventually, “whatever.”

“Other objections?” Takashi asks, with the voice of someone who really wishes he was done with all this. Either everyone agrees, or they all also detect his tone, because there is no answer. “Okay,” he sighs. “Welcome on board, Acxa.” She nods, and turns to look at Keith gratefully, before Takashi continues, “I think that’s enough. Sam, when do you think we’ll be able to fly the Atlas on long distances?”

“A few days at most,” Sam holt replies, and everyone in the room turns toward him. “Katie’s idea worked out, and we’ve found a way to channel Earth technology into Altean, and vice-versa. There’s still some tests we need to run, but it won’t take long. Of course, we won’t know exactly what we are doing until you start flying, but-”

“Do we ever?” Hunk finishes for him. “Anyway, Pidge and I have figured it out enough that we should be able to fix any issues. I think. I hope.” He gets a bit flustered as he talks, and Adam decides that he likes this kid.

“And it will carry the Lions, and the MFEs, just fine,” Pidge adds with a shrug, and her tone seems to suggest that the matter is settled.

“Well, then,” Takashi starts. His tone is firm, but Adam knows him well enough to see the tiredness in his shoulders. “It’s decided. We are going to space,” he pauses for a second, which makes Adam snort quietly, because he had almost forgotten how dramatic Takashi was, “and saving the universe.”

 

Later, as they head back to their room, Adam can’t help it and bursts out laughing on Takashi’s shoulder. “You’re so, _so_ dramatic,” he says, struggling to breathe, “I’m never letting you live this down.”

Takashi looks outraged for a second, and then he bursts out laughing too.

***

Two days later, Keith doesn’t really know what to do while everyone else is emotionally saying goodbye to their family, so he resorts to awkwardly standing around. Shiro is running around making sure that all the last details are in place, and Kolivan and Krolia are helping carry provisions onto the Atlas, and Keith doesn’t really have anyone to say goodbye to in the first place, so he finds himself stuck with Adam, overviewing the situation. Now that they’ve both managed to overcome the excitement of their reunion, Keith has decided to start giving Adam the cold shoulder again, just for the sake of habit.

“So,” Adam says, pushing his glasses back, “Lance.”

“That’s not a conversation we’re having.” Keith makes to leave, but Adam’s voice holds him in place.

“Oh, come on! I just came back from the dead!” he shouts.

“It doesn’t count as coming back from the dead if you don’t do the actual dying part.”

“Technicalities,” Adam argues.

“You’re the most technical person I know. Shut up.”

“I mean, you _have_ lived with Matt’s sister for a year. Thought that would have changed your perspective.”

Keith snorts, and shakes his head. “For the record, I still find you annoying.”

Adam has a crooked grin on his face, which suggests that he doesn’t believe it for a second. He’s right not to. “So, Lance,” He says again.

“Please stop talking,” Keith groans. “He likes Allura anyway. He literally hates me.”

“And you’re sure about that, huh?” Adam asks. Incredible how, with half of his face burned, he can still raise his left eyebrow incredibly effectively.

“Yeah,” Keith says, because he’s really not going to take the matter any further. But then, pushed by the weird honesty influence that Adam seems not to have lost, he adds, “He didn’t use to hate me. I think. I mean, we got close, but then I left. And now…”

“And now he’s angry at you for leaving?” At Keith’s nod, Adam shakes his head. “You’re such a disaster, Keith,” he laughs, “You really take after Takashi.” Keith is done. Keith is so done with this conversation. Adam must see it in his eyes, because he says, “Okay, I’m going to go look for Takashi,” as he claps his hands together. “Why don’t you go play with your space dog?”

“It’s a wolf!” Keith shouts after him while he leaves, but lets out a giggle as soon as he’s sure that Adam can’t hear him anymore. Just a bit further away, Pidge is hugging Matt and Colleen, and just a few feet away from them, Lance and Veronica are saying goodbye to their family. Keith takes a few tentative steps in their direction. It’s not that he wants to pry, it’s just, maybe, he’s curious. He wants to know what it’s like to have such a big family, and he’s curious about what Lance is like with them. Just from the way he’s smiling at his younger cousins, he looks softer than Keith’s ever seen him, and he can feel his heart tighten a little bit. Lance then leans forward to hug his mother, and she cups his cheeks.

“ _Mi hijo_ ,” she says, and her voice is warm and kind. “How you’ve grown. Your _abuelos_ would be so proud,” she kisses his forehead, then adds, “they’re watching you from the stars.”

“I know, _Mamá,_ ” he says, and Keith can’t see him very well from where he’s standing, but he could swear there’s tears in his eyes. Suddenly, he feels his cheeks go red as he realises that he’s practically listening in to a private family conversation, and he walks away. Maybe Krolia and Kolivan need help with those provisions.

***

Saying goodbye to his family is hard, Hunk isn’t going to lie about that. They’ve just been reunited, and here they all are again, ready to go on another brave and possibly suicidal mission to save the universe, and it feels like they’ve barely had the time to make up for all the things they’ve missed, away from each other. When his parents hug him goodbye, their cheeks are wet and their eyes proud, and for a few seconds Hunk actually thinks that he won’t be able to turn around and board the Atlas, but then he takes a deep breath and, after ruffling his cousin’s hair for the last time, he heads to the ship.

Except, Shay is waiting for him close to the entrance, a small smile on her face.

“So,” she says, and Hunk thinks he could cry. No, really. For no reason, just because it’s a healthy way to cope with emotions, and God knows he could use a bit of that right now.

“So,” he says instead, his voice a bit strangled. “Feels a bit unfair. Me leaving when you’ve just decided to stay.”

“I’ll wait.”

Hunk swallows nervously. It’s not that he wants to read too much into this. It’s just that, Shay’s really cute, and they have spent a lot of time together since she came to Earth, just catching up and talking about the stars and the universe and the two of them. And he doesn’t really know what to make of it.

“That’s, uh, that’s cool.” He says. In the back of his head, he can hear Pidge’s voice. _Lame._

“Go save the universe,” she says, and leans forward, and then kisses him on the lips. Which, _wow._ It’s just a brush of lips, and when she pulls back, she is looking at him attentively. “That’s how you do it on Earth, right?”

Hunk is fairly certain he’s a smart person. He might not be incredibly brave, or incredibly strong, or incredibly funny, but the one thing he knows – he’s smart. Except, that must have gone too now, because his synapses don’t seem to connect properly.

“I…think so?” He manages after some effort.

Shay seems relieved at this, and smiles. She’s so cute, Hunk might die. “Good. I asked Allura, but I wasn’t sure.”

“No, that’s - that’s, uhm, that’s good.”

“I will see you once you get back, then,” she says.

Well, all the more reasons to come back to Earth in one piece.

***

After the last huge family embrace, Lance and Veronica walk to the Atlas together. She’s smiling a little bit, but her eyes seem a little melancholic.

“Everything okay?” Lance asks.

“Yes,” she nods slowly. “I’m just thinking about what it might have felt like, the first time you left Earth.”

Lance considers that for a second. The truth is that then, they didn’t really know what they were doing, they’d just jumped onto the Blue Lion and rolled along with it. He tells her exactly that.

“I’m so proud of you, Lance,” she says, and Lance feels the urge to look away. “And I’m so happy I can come with you, this time.” Her eyes are a bit shiny, which, wow. His older sister is one of the strongest people Lance has ever met, and if she’s crying, he doesn’t really know what to do.

“I’m really happy you’re coming, too,” he says, and what he finds strange, is that he doesn’t really feel the urge to cry. Several near-death experiences will do that to you, he guesses.

“Yeah, you better be,” she says, and dries her eyes with a shrug. Then, her gaze focuses on something on Lance’s left, and he turns to look at it: Allura is saying goodbye to Romelle who, against everyone’s expectations, has decided to stay on Earth, saying that the Altean colony had nothing for her. She’s so cheerful that Lance sometimes forgets she’s lost her family.

“So,” Veronica says, and from her tone Lance already knows he’ll hate what’s coming, “the cute alien Princess.”

“What about her,” he mutters.

“You like her?”

Lance feels himself choke on thin air. _Unsurprising_. He turns to look at Allura again, then back at Veronica.

“Do you want to know the weird thing?” He says. “I don’t.” Veronica raises her eyebrows at him, like she doesn’t believe him, which is fair. “No, for real,” he insists. “I mean, I had a huge crush on her for months. But now… it’s gone.” He isn’t sure when it happened, but as he says it, he’s certain it’s true. He thinks back to Allura beaming at him, and how he’d just felt warm and comfortable, and how it was so much better than feeling nervous every time she looked at him. “I mean, I still think Allura is amazing,” he specifies, “but she’s such a good friend, and I realised… we would never work as a couple. And it’s not just that she’s out of my league, it’s that… I would be her rebound, and I don’t want that.”

“Okay, first,” Veronica interrupts him, raising a finger, “if I ever hear you saying again that _any_ space Princess is out of your league, I’m going to punch you. Second,” she raises another finger, “I’m going to need more gossip about what exactly happened between Space Princess and Crazy Homicidal Alien. And third,” she lowers her hand with a small smile, “every time I think that you can’t possibly have grown more, you find a way to surprise me. And I’m not going to say that I’m proud of you again, but that’s just because there’s been too much emotion in this conversation already.”

Lance snorts. “If you say again that you’re proud of me, I am literally going to throw up.”

“Good,” she says. “I’m glad that we agree on that.” She bites her lip, then looks at Lance with a gaze that is frankly kind of scary. “So. The Emo Kid.”

“No!” Lance shouts, and starts walking faster to get rid of her. “Nope, I’m done with this. Bye!”

***

Perhaps surprisingly, take-off goes smoothly, and soon they’re in outer space. Once they’re on a safe course, the Atlas can self-pilot well enough, and the computer warns them that it will take at least a week of travel to reach the Altean colony, so once everything is settled Shiro leaves the bridge in the hands of Pidge and Hunk and goes looking for Adam.

He finds him on the upper deck, sitting on the floor and looking at the big glass window in front of him, contemplating the endlessness of the stars.

“Hey,” Shiro says softly, as he goes sit next to him.

“Hey,” Adam turns to smile at him, and Shiro - Shiro tries to take it all in, the man he loves, and the stars, and the universe waiting for them. Just a few years ago, a mission at the edge of the universe with Adam, and the Atlas, and the MFEs, would have been his wildest dream. Now, as he shyly lays his hand close to Adam’s so that he can take it if he wants to, he wonders if that’s still true. It makes him think, nonsensically, of a poem he read once, when he was much, much younger. _Some men say an army of ships the most beautiful thing on the black Earth. But I say it is what you love._

“They look different now,” Adam says, as his fingers lightly brush Shiro’s. His voice is low, like he’s thinking out loud. “The stars, I mean. Like they’re closer. And do _not_ say it’s because we are literally among them now.”

Shiro smiles to himself. “Do you remember,” he says, “when we first flew out of the atmosphere?”

“We were together,” Adam nods. His smile is melancholic. “And the first thing you said was, _I didn’t think there were so many._ ”

“And then you said, _no shit, Shirogane._ Way to ruin the moment.”

“I was fifteen,” Adam laughs, “I was such an ass at fifteen. I don’t know how you fell in love with me.”

“I know,” Shiro says. “It was that you were an ass, but a good ass.”

“And I also have a good ass. The whole package.”

Shiro bursts out laughing, and Adam laughs too. “They look different to me too,” Shiro adds then, the words spilling out of him. “Scarier, sometimes. More mysterious. It’s strange,” he looks down at his Altean hand, studying it carefully, “how now that I’ve seen more of the universe, I feel like I understand it less.” Adam leans forward and takes Shiro’s hand – his right one, the Altean prosthetic. He caresses it gently, drawing small circles with his thumb. “When I was younger all I wanted was to understand space. Explore it. Now-” he pauses, looking for the right words. “Now I understand that I will never be able to understand it fully. And the strangest thing is that I’m okay with that.”

“You don’t know why the Black Lion picked you. Or why it picked Keith after you, why it had to be you five out of the whole galaxy,” Adam explains, his logic immediately picking up the origins of Shiro’s reasoning. “But you did good things, and that’s enough.”

Shiro nods. “I’m content with this. Despite everything that happened, or because of it, I am content with this. Which reminds me,” his voice suddenly becoming more practical, “that we haven’t really talked about why you wanted to come.”

The topic hasn’t really come up, even though they have spent time together, since then – there has been no more kissing, but they still sleep in the same bed. _With time,_ Shiro thinks.

Adam’s brow furrows. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought it was obvious.”

“I understand that you also want to stop the Galra,” Shiro says. “But they’re – dangerous. We can’t know how this mission will go.”

“I’m well how aware of just how dangerous the Galra are,” Adam replies, and his hand travels unconsciously to brush the scars on the left side of his face. “And I’m sorry, do you think I’m here just because I want to stop the Galra?”

“Yes?”

Adam rolls his eyes, and then laughs. Genuinely laughs. “Takashi, you’re such a disaster,” he says with a snort. “I mean, of course I want to stop the Galra, but,” he chuckles again, shaking his head in surprise. Then he looks at Shiro, getting serious again. “-but I’m here because the last time I let you go to space on your own, you disappeared. And lost an arm. And also, oh, right, _died._ ”

Shiro realises that this hadn’t occurred to him, and also, that he’s an idiot. “I mean, it’s not like I was planning to do all those things,” he argues.

“Whatever,” Adam cuts him off. “From now on, you’re not going to space without my supervision.” He looks at Shiro seriously, searching his face. “Do you promise?”

Shiro looks at Adam, and smiles. “Okay. Promise.”

***

Veronica finds the MFE pilots in the same lounge, and they look like they’ve been waiting – either for her, or for anyone to tell them what happened. Leifsdottir is laying on a couch with her head on Kinkade’s lap, while Rizavi is perched up on the couch’s arm. Veronica goes to sit on one of the two armchairs, the one that isn’t occupied by James.

“We’re on course,” she reports, “at least a week of travel before we arrive, but we might need to make some stops on the way.”

“To pick up distress signals?” James asks.

“That, plus we don’t actually know how long the Atlas’s battery will last. We might have to stop at some point to recharge.”

“Why are you really here?” Rizavi asks. She’s looking at Veronica seriously, and it sounds like the words had been queued up.

Veronica thinks about it for a second. Sure, this is a possibly deadly mission against a space witch and her crazy megalomaniac son, but it had seemed to her like her participation was a given from the start. “My brother is here,” she says slowly. “And I guess I wanted to make sure you nerds made it out alive.”

“Shut up, _you_ are a nerd.” Rizavi argues. She looks down, playing with a strand of her hair, which prompts Veronica to continue.

“I guess it felt weird to see you guys go without me, with everything we’ve done together since the Galra attacked.”

Rizavi grins, and Veronica can see that even Kinkade, who is running his hands through Leifsdottir’s hair and making it into little braids, has a small smile on his face, which leads Veronica to think that she said exactly the right thing.

“Why are you guys here?” She asks then, because hey, if they’re being honest they might as well all be.

“We had promised to defend the Earth,” James says. “And we couldn’t let the Voltron Paladins go on their own, not with everything else they’ve had to do on their own.”

That makes Veronica smile, because it looks like after all, they are all here for the same reason.

“Have you apologised to Keith yet?” Rizavi asks, turning to James.

“What does he have to apologise for?” Veronica asks, because these kids are a few years younger than her, and she has no idea what type of drama they went through when they were at the Academy.

“Being a jerk in general,” Rizavi shrugs.

“I think you got into 13 fights with him, before Pidge and Lance intimidated you into stopping,” Leifsdottir provides sensibly.

“Lance did _what,_ ” Veronica asks.

“Oh, that was fun,” Rizavi perks up, “so, Pidge, who was young but absolutely terrifying, and Lance, came to our table one day and told James that if he didn’t stop bothering Keith, there would have been no body to send to his family.” At Veronica’s shocked expression she adds, “Well, it was Pidge who said that, Lance just stood there and nodded. But I think the idea was his.”

Veronica nods, raising her eyebrows. She did try to have a conversation with Lance about Keith today, and he outright refused, and she doesn’t have the energy. _One day,_ she tells herself, _one day._

“Setting aside whatever weird ways my brother uses to deal with crushes,” she says turning to James, “have you apologised?”

“Not really,” James looks down, embarrassed. “But he knows I’ve changed.”

“Oh, come on,” Rizavi says. “You have to actually apologise.”

James rolls his eyes. “Listen-” he starts, but then Kinkade’s voice cuts the air, which means that the matter is serious.

“She’s right,” he says, looking straight at James. “You should apologise.”

James’s eyes widen a little bit, and he looks down as his cheeks redden. “Fine,” he mutters.

“Hey, if we are here risking our lives with the guy,” Veronica says, shooting him a glance, “we might as well go there with no middle school drama involved.”

***  
Keith doesn’t decide to go to Lance’s room, his feet just sort of take him there. It’s just – maybe the Paladins won’t naturally go to him for support, but that doesn’t mean he can’t offer it and he can’t stop thinking about what he overheard earlier that day. He’s fairly sure that when they first left Earth, Lance’s grandparents were alive, he remembers him talking about them. Which must mean…

He knocks awkwardly on Lance’s door, and a voice from inside invites him to come in. Keith swallows and opens the door, to find Lance pulling himself up on the bed.

“Oh, hi,” he says sheepishly, like he isn’t really sure what Keith is doing there. To be fair, Keith isn’t really sure either.

“Hey,” he says. God, he’s so bad at this. Lance is looking at him expectantly, which is fair, because he’s the one who came unannounced to his room. “I just came to see if you were alright,” he bursts out.

Lance’s eyebrows perk up, like he’s genuinely surprised. “Yeah, I’m cool,” he says, looking down.

“It’s just – I know how happy you were to see your family again, and-”

“You are worried I am getting homesick?” Lance asks. He’s looking at Keith again, a bit sceptically.

“I mean, uhm, yes?”

Lance sighs. “I appreciate it,” he says, and suddenly his voice sounds tired. “But you don’t have to pretend you care.”

“I-” Keith stammers. “I’m not pretending.”

“Alright,” Lance says, and Keith can tell he doesn’t fully believe him. He’s at a loss, because – he thought he and Lance had found a rhythm. That they’d gotten used to each other, that they made a good team, but since he came back from working with the Blade it’s like Lance has been tense and bitter with him, and Keith doesn’t know where he went wrong. He wishes he could find his way back.

“I mean it,” Keith insists, “Are you okay?”

“Are you?” Lance asks, which is a rude question, because Keith isn’t here to talk about his own feelings. Except, maybe a little bit, he is.

“I’m fine,” he says. “Don’t you dare tell him this, but I’m so glad Adam is back. Shiro was so heartbroken, I just…”

“I asked how _you_ are. Not Shiro.”

Keith looks at Lance, surprised, and realises he’s still standing in front of the door. Unsure of what to do, he moves a few steps towards the centre of the room, and Lance, perhaps sensing his discomfort, pats the edge of the bed. Keith sits down next to him and takes a deep breath.

“I just hope I’m doing everything right,” he says. “I – I knew that joining the Blade of Marmora would set me back with the team at least a bit, but I thought I was doing the right thing. Maybe I was wrong.”

“Hey,” Lance says, and his voice is surprisingly soft, “you were doing your best. What matters now is that you’re back, I guess.”

There’s something in his tone that Keith can’t quite discern, but he smiles anyways. “Thanks,” he says. Then, a bit lower, “I feel like I got something wrong here. I came because I thought you might need comfort and here we are.”

“It’s alright,” Lance says, and silence falls upon them, as they both stare at the wall in front of them. Then Lance adds, “My grandparents died while we were away from Earth.”

“I… gathered,” Keith says, because he would rather die than admit that he listened in to Lance’s conversation with his family. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Lance repeats, his voice less convinced than the first time. “I just wish I could’ve… said goodbye.”

Keith gets that. Maybe he doesn’t know what it’s like to lose your grandparents, but he can understand the need to say goodbye. “You know how Quintessence runs through everything?” He asks.

“Yeah?” Lance replies, his tone uncertain.

“That must mean that whatever we do, we leave signs of it everywhere, right?” Keith doesn’t really know where this is coming from, but the more he talks, the more he feels like it’s the right thing to say.

“I mean, I guess?”

“And then it goes all around the universe. Just, tiny traces of the people we have loved, running all over the universe,” his voice gets steadier, more certain, “so, whoever we lose, they’re never really gone. We can always look for them… in the stars.”

“I didn’t think you were so poetic,” Lance says, and his voice sounds a bit choked up. _Neither did I,_ Keith wants to say. “That sounds like something my mum said.” Lance continues, before breaking into a sob. Keith turns to look at him for a second, and he can see that his eyes are filled with tears. “ _Fuck,_ ” Lance says. “I really didn’t mean to cry in front of you.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Keith says, and then gently, with no clue of what the fuck he’s doing, he places his hand on Lance’s thigh, just above his knee. Lance shudders at the contact, and then breaks into sobs on Keith’s shoulder. Gently, he wraps his other arm around Lance’s shoulders.  It’s the second time in four days Keith holds someone who is crying, and he can’t help but notice how different holding Lance feels from Shiro. Trying not to dwell too much on it, he strokes Lance’s shoulders, and whispers against his forehead, “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, response to last chapter was? Wild and unexpected? I thiiiink it might have something to do with the increased dose of klance, which leads me to say, I hope you like this one, because there is definitely a lot more of that here. This chapter is literally just people sitting down and talking, but like, that's what we all read fanfiction for. If I wanted action with no character development, I'd watch the show. (Sorry, I'm bitter).  
> Moving onto the bad news, I've had the flu this week, which means that I'm a bit behind schedule with the writing ahead (I'm only halfway through chapter 7), sooo the next chapter might come out a bit later than next Saturday (hopefully I will be able to catch up, though).  
> Anyway, I hope to see you with the next chapter! If you want you can come shout at me on tumblr at @officiallyadoptingshinyahiiragi, and feel free to message me or drop a comment down here if you'd like to beta-read this story (I still don't have an editor! I could get my flatmate to do it, but then I'd live covered in shame).
> 
> Next chapter features actual space action, and Keith fucking up.


	5. The Space Shenanigans Arc - part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which evil aliens are defeated through the power of friendship, or something

Keith doesn’t know how he put himself into this situation, but in hindsight, as he wakes up in Lance’s bed with a crooked neck, he probably should have seen it coming. He wasn’t _planning_ on falling asleep there, it’s just that once Lance was done crying, he’d kind of sniffled on Keith’s shirt, and then straight up fallen asleep. And Keith didn’t want to wake him, so he’d just laid his back on the wall, and well – Lance was warm, and sort of heavy and comforting, and he’d fallen asleep right there. Lance is still asleep, softly snoring on Keith’s shoulder, and Keith has to admit that despite the fact that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to feel his left arm again, it’s strangely comfortable.

“Hey,” he whispers softly, and Lance groans against his shoulder.

“Five more minutes,”

“Lance, we probably need to… do something.” Keith mutters, because he doesn’t actually know why they should move, it’s just. He’s feeling too comfortable not to overthink this, and this is not the time to overthink things.

Suddenly, Lance pulls back, his eyes open wide. His hair is a mess and all pushed to one side, and Keith has to admit it’s kind of adorable.

“Wh- did – what,” Lance is mumbling, a bit frantically. He shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath, and looks back at Keith. “Did I, uhm, fall asleep on you?”

“Yeah,” Keith nods, “you did.”

“Jeez. I’m sorry.” Lance looks a bit embarrassed, and Keith doesn’t know what to say.

“It’s okay, I fell asleep too.”

“Right,” Lance says. His cheeks have gone red, and Keith can feel his own ears being uncomfortably warm. This is bad. This is so very bad.

“Huh, I should probably go,” Keith gets up from the bed more quickly than necessary. “I should go look for Shiro.”

“Yeah, okay,” Lance nods. “I will see you later?”

“Yes, yes of course,” Keith mutters, and runs out of the door before he can say something stupid like _looking forward to it._

He’s almost at the brig when he runs into Acxa, clearly headed in the same direction.

“Hi,” she says, with a small smile.

“Uhm, hello,” Keith replies, his voice uncertain. This is great, he’s barely woken up and he’s already failed every social interaction he’s had this morning. He can hear Pidge and Adam laughing at him in the back of his head.

“Keith, I just wanted to say,” she continues, turning to look at him. “Thanks for letting me come on this mission.”

“It was a group decision,” Keith says slowly, not sure where she’s going with this.

“Yes, but if you hadn’t insisted, the others might have decided it was safer to keep me on Earth. I just wanted to say, thank you for your trust.”

It sounds like she means it, which is what leaves Keith the most baffled. The thing about Acxa, is that it feels like they’ve both gone through similar things. Keith had to come to grips with being Galra, and she’s clearly struggling to find – a different way of being Galra. Two sides of the same coin.

“Of course,” Keith says, and before he has time to add anything else, the lights falter for a second once, and then a second time.

“Is that not the all hands on deck signal?” Acxa asks, an eyebrow raised.

“I – I’m pretty sure it is,” he says, and they both nod at each other in agreement before heading to the brig. Right now, only Veronica, Coran and Pidge are there, but Shiro walks in shortly after them, followed by Adam. Keith can’t help but notice that they look surprisingly put together for two men who have just spent the night together.

“What’s happening?” Shiro asks, taking his place at the centre of the brig. Keith sees Adam hesitate for a second, then shrug to himself and going to join Shiro, who seems perfectly comfortable with sharing the captain’s position. They used to be co-pilots, after all.

“We just picked up a distress call,” Pidge replies, reading quickly off the screen in front of her. A planet nearby.”

Kolivan and Krolia both walk in as well, quickly followed the MFE pilots. Just a few seconds later, Lance and Veronica walk in as too, and soon Hunk and Allura join them as well. Suddenly, the brig feels strangely crowded.

“As I was saying,” Pidge says again, “we got a distress call from a small sand planet nearby. They’re under Galra rule.”

“I don’t want to be that person,” Veronica says, tilting her head to the side. “But I don’t think we can afford to liberate every Galra-dominated planet we find. Wasn’t the whole point of this fighting them at the source?”

“You’re right,” Pidge nods, “but this planet is dangerously close to its star, which means that only a small portion on its north pole is inhabited. Technically, it would be more like liberating a very large prison camp. A base. A conglomerate. A -”

“Got it,” Veronica raises her hand, and looks at Shiro. “Captain?”

Shiro closes his eyes and glances at Adam, who raises his eyebrows at him. Keith isn’t really sure what that’s meant to mean, but it must be enough to prompt Shiro to make a decision, because he says, “We can launch a reconnaissance mission, and then decide if it’s doable. After all, we could also take this as an opportunity to find out what the Galra are doing now.”

“Hunk and I could go,” Pidge suggests then. “With our lions. Do a quick patrol, come back and report. It wouldn’t take more than a few hours.”

Keith can see that Shiro is about to agree, but James cuts in before he can say anything. “I’m sorry,” he says, “but if this is meant to be a stealth mission, then sending the huge lions that the Galra are obsessed with apprehending seems like an odd way of going about it.”

“He has a point,” Krolia shrugs, and Keith notices Veronica and Kolivan are nodding as well.

“Then what do you suggest we do?” Pidge asks, pushing her glasses back, and Keith even feels a bit bad for James, because if Pidge was looking at him like that, he would probably already be reaching for his knife.

“We go,” Kinkade cuts in, looking at Pidge like she’s missing the obvious answer.

She frowns, and turns towards Shiro with her mouth half-opened, like she’s genuinely surprised by his words.

“We said we were coming to help you,” Rizavi presses on. “We understand that you’re used to do things on your own, but you don’t need to anymore.”

The funny thing is, Keith is surprised as well. None of them are used to having others to support them, not to have to resort to their lions for everything. It’s a strange feeling.

“Pidge,” Shiro says slowly, and from his tone Keith can see that he’s thinking the same thing. “Didn’t you equip the MFEs with a cloaking device?”

“I – I did.” She stutters.

“Are you guys sure?” Shiro asks, looking at James again.

James smiles a little. “Sure,” he says.

***

Lance would have thought that once they were back in space, there would have been less waiting to do. Instead, here they are, waiting for the MFE pilots to get back, with not much to do except walk around the brig, which is exactly what he’s doing. After the MFE pilots had gone, most people had left, and only Veronica, Shiro and Adam had shown no intention to move. And while Lance wasn’t sure what he could do there to help, he sure as hell didn’t want to go out and see Keith, not after – whatever had happened the night before. Lane didn’t understand what was going on there, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to understand.

While Veronica tracks the MFEs from the side, the top, Shiro is at the top, standing at the captain’s place with Adam, who is reading to him from one of the screens while Shiro studies what look like maps. They’re in such a perfect symbiosis, it’s almost hard to believe that Shiro ever captained the Atlas without Adam. The latter looks up from the screen for a second and his eyes – eye? Lance isn’t sure what the right terminology for someone who has lost an eye – cross Lance’s, and then he touches Shiro’s elbows lightly and leans forward to whisper something in his ear. Shiro nods and Adam jumps down from the captain’s platform to head to the chair next to Lance’s. He plops down dramatically.

“I feel like our introduction was more rushed and awkward then it needed to be,” he says, offering his hand to Lance. “I’m Adam.”

Uncertain, Lance takes it. “I’m Lance?” He asks, and Adam raises his eyebrows.

“Oh, I know,” he says, like the thing isn’t weird at all. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“I’ve not heard much about you, instead,” Lance replies, and then realises his words sound more cutting than he meant them to, but Adam seems to smile at them.

“That’s so unfortunate,” he says, “please remind me to fill you in on how awesome I am.”

“Why have you heard about me?” Lance asks, the words coming out of his mouth before he can think better of it.

Adam’s mouth curls upward, the left corner tugging a bit at the scars on his face. “Takashi,” he says, and it actually takes a second for Lance to realise he’s talking about Shiro. “And Keith, of course. You were in the same class, weren’t you?” His tone is entirely innocent, which makes the words sound even more nonsensical than they already are, because Lance is pretty sure that-

“Keith doesn’t remember me. From the academy, I mean.”

“He doesn’t?” Adam’s right eyebrow shoots up. “That’s interesting.”

As if on cue, Keith materialises on the brig, accompanied by Kosmo.

“What was _that_?” Adam yelps sounding genuinely startled, which Lance finds kind of funny considering he’d been so laid back until a few seconds ago.

“Kosmo can teleport.” Keith says dismissively, and ignores Adam’s surprised gasp in favour of saying, “More importantly, what is this?” He eyes Lance and then Adam, shooting him a meaningful glance that Lance doesn’t understand.

“We were just getting to know each other,” Adam waves his hand.

“Right.” Keith looks like he’s about to strangle Adam, and Lance has no idea what’s going on.

“Don’t scare him!” Shiro shouts from the top of the bridge.

Adam turns to him, a small smile curling his lips. “I honestly can’t tell if you’re telling Keith not to scare me, or telling me not to scare Keith,”

“Both, Adam,” Shiro says with a shrug, “with you two, it’s always both.”

“I reject that accusation,” Adam’s tone is overly pompous. “I’ve never scared anyone in my whole life.”

“What about that time you hid in the closet at Halloween, just so that you could jump out to scare Keith?”

“You weren’t even scary,” Keith remarks.

“I had a shirt that said _compulsory heterosexuality_ on it. The scariest of them all.” Adam says, clearly offended. “And I seem to recall you running to Takashi shouting that there was a mad-man in your closet.”

“I was being factual,” Keith rebuts, “not scared.”

Suddenly, the thought hits Lance. “Wait,” he tells Adam, “does this mean you lived with Keith when he was younger?”

Adam’s gaze sharpens as he looks back at Lance. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

Oh. Oh, boy. Lance would never have asked Shiro, but Adam – his relationship with Keith seems to be competitive enough that maybe, just maybe, he’s stumbled upon a gold mine.

“Please tell me embarrassing stories from when Keith was a kid.”

Adam grins. “Gladly.”

“Please, don’t do that,” Keith complains. “I have a sword.”

“And I have miraculously survived being shot out of the sky by the Galra and Takashi would be really upset if any harm were to come to me,” Adam argues, low enough that Shiro doesn’t actually hear. “And no, before you ask, I’m not letting go of that card any time soon.” Keith groans as Adam turns to Lance. “So, when he was thirteen…”

***

By the time James, Leifsdottir, Rizavi and Kinkade get back, Lance has been informed of the time Keith stabbed himself with a toy sword, of the time he somehow washed all of his clothes with Adam’s glitter rather than detergent and had to go around sparkling for a week, and of the time he accidentally polished his toy sword with said glitter (“It was great,” Adam says, “it was like he was wielding the gayest lightsaber ever made”).

Once everyone is back on the brig and Lance still hasn’t fully finished laughing, the pilots confirm what their initial suspicions were: the planet is mostly uninhabited, with a single city and a rural area around it. The city has been clearly turned into a Galra base, while the population has been shoved into four small labour camps in the countryside. Plausibly, they should be able to free it within the day.

“There’s a main building protected by this sort of big cannon,” James reports, “so we should probably get rid of that before trying to attack the base.”

“If someone manages to neutralise the cannon,” Shiro starts saying, thinking out loud, “and at the same time we free the labour camps, then we can all converge on the main base with an all-out attack. We wouldn’t even need to use the Atlas.”

“Each one of us takes care of a camp, with our lions,” Keith suggests.

“No,” James cuts him off, and Lance can see Keith stiffening. “The camps also need to be a stealth mission, and you’ll never manage that with your lions. It needs to be us.”

Keith looks like he’s about to rebut, but he holds his tongue and looks at Shiro instead

“You will all need reinforcements,” Shiro’s voice is final. “Krolia, Kolivan, Acxa, and Veronica. Can each one of you go with one of them?” Scattered murmurs of agreement run through the room. “I can take the hovercraft at the same time, it should go undetected for long enough to allow me to sabotage the cannon. By that time they will probably have some ships ready to attack, so I will need you to step in with the lions.” The last bit is directed at Keith, who nods solemnly.

“We’ve got you covered,” he says. He looks so serious, so firm, that it makes Lance kind of smile.

“I’m coming with you,” Adam says, nonchalantly. He’s looking at his right hand, the one that’s covered in scars, but looks up at Shiro as he says it.

“You… are?” Shiro asks, and he sounds confused but not surprised.

“I can’t pilot,” Adam says, and it would come off as casual if he didn’t do that thing again – the thing that Lance has seen him do a few times already, where he absentmindedly touches his burned cheek, like he needs to remind himself of the scars’ presence – “but I can still help with the technical parts, and most importantly, you will need support once you land, and I can still pack a few punches. And I am _dying_ to punch a Galra.”

***

Being back on a mission with Adam is, to put it simply, awesome. The hovercraft is small and only supposed to be piloted by one person, so Adam sits on Shiro’s right, checking the screens as he carefully scans bits and pieces of information and selects what he needs to tell Shiro to help him keep the best trajectory possible. He’d almost forgotten this – the perfect symbiosis he and Adam are in, how easily they can fall into a harmony. They’re both grinning like children.

“What are you smiling at?” Adam asks, like he isn’t doing the exact same thing.

“I’m really happy you’re here.” He’d also forgotten this. He’d almost forgotten that there had been a time when he didn’t keep everything bottled up, there had been a time when he and Adam would tell each other everything, how they’d promised to each other that there would be no secrets between them, and how peaceful it felt to spell the truth out loud, to see Adam smiling in response.

“I told you, no more going to space without me. Also, about three degrees to the right.”

Shiro smiles as he adjusts his trajectory. It’s a similar feeling to when they all combine to form Voltron, the same knowledge that they’re made to work together, except it’s a different kind of tension. Not necessarily better, just – different. It’s been over a year, Shiro realises, and he’s still so in love.

“I was worried you were going to put your foot down and tell me to stay on the Atlas, or something.” Adam adds after a few seconds.

“What? No. I know better than trying to tell you what to do.”

“Good. Although, for the sake of honesty, you do look really hot when you take command.”

Shiro grins.

“The intercom is on,” Keith groans from the radio. “Please stop flirting.”

***

By this point Veronica has gotten used to a number of things: a) this expedition is probably going to generate a number of potentially deadly missions, so might as well get used to it, b) despite appearances, Takashi Shirogane is actually a dork in love who will actively get distracted during said deadly missions to flirt with his boyfriend, c) that doesn’t make him any less of a hell of a good commander.

“So the plan is,” she repeats out loud, just for the sake of doing something, “we shoot down the conglomerate where most of the guards are located, then land and finish freeing the camp. Once that’s done, we get back on the MFE and converge to join the attack on the main base.”

“I’m so glad you’re the one who came with me,” Rizavi says from the pilot’s seat. “Keith’s badass alien mum kind of scares me.”

“Intercom is still on,” Keith’s voice comes through the radio for the second time in no more than ten minutes, “and I’m pretty sure she heard you.”

“I’m honoured that you find me intimidating,” Krolia’s voice replies, “I promise I’m here to help?”

“Yeah, I know,” Rizavi says with a smile. “I meant it as a compliment anyway.”

“We are in position,” Kolivan is the one who interrupts them. He’s flying with Kinkade. “How is everyone else doing?”

“We have got the cannon in sight,” Wilson’s voice says through the radio. “Just, move a bit to the left – yes, we’ve got it.”

“We’re in position too,” Rizavi informs them, giving Veronica a small smile. “This is going surprisingly smoothly.”

“If we get shot down now, I’m blaming you,” Griffin says, and Veronica can hear Krolia’s muffled laugh. “We are in position too.”

“Us, too,” Leifsdottir says briefly.

“Alright, everyone,” the Commander’s voice comes through, loud and clear. “Load your weapons. Only fire at my signal.”

There’s a few moments of silence, as they all do as they’re told.

“Now.”

***

Their landing is bumpy to say the least. After the hovercraft ejects a blue ray of light that succeeds in destroying the big cannon, it’s barely a matter of seconds before an array of small Galra ships rises to attack, and even though the lions of Voltron step in to defend them the hovercraft takes a few hits. And here’s something Adam hadn’t anticipated – being under Galra fire brings back memories of falling out of the sky and into the darkness, of burning alone with only one thought keeping him from giving in. And it’s that thought that pushes Adam to realise that he’s not alone this time, and he’s gonna do his goddamn best not to fall out of the sky.

He looks up, and he can’t understand very well how close the ground or the Galra ships are, and his head hurts from trying to follow everything that’s going on at the same time using only one eye. So he takes a deep breath, and looks down at the screen in front of him, which is frantically showing statistics that Takashi is too busy avoiding Galra shots to look at.

“Takashi,” he says, feeling the confidence grow in his voice, “if you lower a bit the head of the craft, we can make safe landing just ahead of us.”

It takes Takashi only a second to understand just what he means. “Yeah, I’ve got you,” he says, and lowers the craft. The landing is too quick to be comfortable, but at least the hovercraft doesn’t catch fire, which Adam would consider a win.

“We’ve got you covered!” Allura shouts from the radio. “Just get out of there, head to the base!”

“Ready?” Takashi asks, after they’ve both gotten out of their seats and grabbed the rifles that had been waiting for them.

“Can’t wait,” Adam smirks, and they go out together into the battle.

***

_Allura has categorised four out of the five new Voltron paladins as: the gloomy kid, the kid who is secretly a girl, the smart kid who really hates the goo and the very dramatic kid who is actually really nice and a bit insecure. They’re not practical nicknames, and she only told Coran about them while he was braiding her hair in the middle of the night, but they’re helping keeping her sane and telling them all apart. The one she can’t quite place is Shiro, not because he acts particularly mysterious, but because he’s just a bit – distant. He’s a great leader and he inspires trust, but when he’s not looking after the bunch of children he got stuck with, he gets quiet, and a little sad. They all get like that, every once in a while, and Allura would blame it on the fact that, just like the others, he’s missing his family (and missing family, that’s something she’s coming to understand really well), but differently from all the other paladins, he’s never once mentioned anyone from Earth that he misses, which just makes Allura all the more curious._

_So, one night, after they’ve sent all the other paladins to sleep and it’s just the two of them in the castle’s lounge, it’s difficult to resist asking._

_Shiro shoots her a cautious glance. “You should probably sleep too,” he says, which makes Allura smile, because while it’s true that he’s older than her, he isn’t actually_ that _much older, and yet it looks like he has taken her under his protective wing as well._

_“I’ve spent a thousand years sleeping,” she waves her hand. “I think I’m good for the next five hundred, or so.”_

_“Can’t argue with that,” Shiro smiles._

_“So, how are you settling down?” She blurts out eventually. Not exactly the question she was going for, but better than nothing._

_“Good,” he says. His eyes are tired, but there’s a small sparkle in them, like he means it. “It’s… intense. Different. I think I like it.”_

_“It must be very different from what you’re used to.” Allura says, trying to keep her voice soft._

_“I wanted to see the stars, and defend the Earth. It is different, but not so much. I’m glad I get to do this.”_

_“Don’t you miss it?” the question comes out before Allura can stop it. “Earth, I mean. Your family?”_

_“I don’t have much family left,” Shiro sighs, and his expression has darkened a bit. “My mother died when I was young, and my father never recovered. We don’t have much to say to each other. And-” he stammers, “anyway, all I have left is Keith.”_

_“And what?” Allura asks. It’s not that she means to pry, it’s just - he looks so sad. “Who are you missing?”_

_Shiro swallows. He’s looking at her like he can barely see her._

_“His name was Adam,” he says eventually. “He was-” he shakes his head, like he can’t physically force the words out. “I loved him, and he loved me.” He looks like he wants to say something else, but stops himself. He looks up at Allura, and for once, he looks very, very young._

_“It sounds like he was really important to you,” Allura says softly._

_“Yeah,” Shiro sighs. “Anyway, things between us ended before I got captured by the Galra. I just hope he’s doing okay.”_

_“Why did they end?”_

_“Circumstances.” Shiro’s voice is firm, and Allura understands that he doesn’t want to say anything else on the matter._

_“I think he misses you,” she blurts out before the thought fully forms in her head._

_Shiro frowns. “Why do you think that?”_

_She blushes, but keeps looking at Shiro. “I haven’t known you for long,” she says, “but it seems to me like you are a very good man. And if you loved him, I believe he was good enough to know that as well. And knowing that, I would miss you.”_

_“I hope he doesn’t,” Shiro says. His voice sounds strained. “I don’t even know if I will ever see him again.”_

***

Covering Adam and Shiro on land is just as stressful as expected. From the blue lion, Allura only sees them as two small, quick moving spots slowly making their way among a swarm of Galra.

“I’m starting to think,” Adam gasps into the intercom, “that we might have approached this a bit too head-on.”

Allura ducks to get out of the way of a shot aimed at her, which goes to hit another Galra ship instead.

“We are on our way to you!” Griffin shouts, “Leifs and Kolivan are still at the camp, but everyone else is heading to the base!”

“Yeah, we wouldn’t hate some reinforcements here!” Adam replies, just as Allura notices another Galra approaching him and Shiro, who both look way too busy to notice him. She lunges forward with Blue, and the Galra freezes on the spot.

“Thanks, Allura!” Shiro is out of breath, but she can hear the smile in his voice.

“It’s okay!” She says, a grin growing on her face as she redirects her attention onto another Galra ship. “I’ve got your back.”

***

A floating hand comes out of nowhere to punch one of the Galras that’s facing Adam.

“You’re welcome!” Takashi shouts, just while Adam shoots another one.

“You know,” Adam shouts back, turning towards him. “I’m starting to really like that thing. Duck!” Takashi does as he’s told while a Galra tries to catch him off-guard, but Adam shoots her before she can get too close.

In the midst of battle, Takashi smiles. “This is fun,” he says. “We should do it more often.”

Just as he says it, Adam’s rifle gets knocked out of his hands, which is unfortunate. He turns towards the Galra who did it. He’s taller than Adam, and definitely has more muscles, but Adam is really, really angry. He smiles, and punches him straight in the face.

***

Things seem to go well, until they don’t, and it’s Keith’s fault. It’s just that, clearly, the team has gotten used to working without him, and now that he’s here, they don’t really know how to deal, and so he accidentally crashes into a manoeuvre  that Pidge and Hunk are using to surround a Galra, which gets him to bump into the blue lion, which misses its shot, and almost hits Lance.

“Keith!” Allura shouts, frustration seeping through her voice, which Keith can’t blame her for.

“Well, at least you didn’t actually hit me,” Lance says. “Keith, to your right!”

Keith is still recovering from hitting Allura, and completely misses the shot aimed at him. It pushes him back, blinding him.

“Someone! Cover him!” Lance shouts.

“Trying,” Pidge says, “We’re a little busy here!”

Keith’s head is spinning, as he desperately tries to reach for the controls again.

“Guys, things are getting really crowded here,” Adam’s voice is breathless. “And I mean, there’s a lot of them and very, very few of us. About two of us to be precise. We could use some help!”

“I don’t think we can land,” Pidge says. “Not until we’re done neutralising the ships.”

“Guess we’ll die!” Adam shouts.

“Keith!” Lance’s voice calls. He sounds so concerned, Keith thinks he might get sick. “Keith, are you okay?”

“I-” he stutters. _I don’t know what to do._

“Keith, I’m covering your right,” Lance’s voice is steadier now. “You’ve got a ship incoming from your left, you will need to shoot it down.”

There is something, about the way he says it, like he is confident that Keith will do it, that gives him the final push to grab the controls again. He turns quickly, and barely needs to look at the ship before firing at it.

“Yes!” Lance shouts. “Let’s keep it going!”

“It looks like you can use some help down there!” James Griffin’s voice comes through, and Keith can suddenly see the four MFEs soaring through the air, just above ground. They stop for long enough for the pilots to jump out.

“About time!” Adam says, as the tide dramatically reverses on land.

Keith flips the black lion around, to neutralise an incoming Galra ship.

“Okay, that was the last one,” he says, realising slowly that he’s gotten calmer. “Let’s finish this.”

***

Eventually, the very few Galra who are left flee on a small craft that survived the fight, and they decide that there is no point in pursuing, so they just wait on the planet’s surface until Shiro gets back to the Atlas, and manoeuvres it onto the ground. The native species is relatively humanoid, but has very small eyes and very dark skin, as well as strange tentacles where their hands are supposed to be. They thank them thoroughly from having saved them from the Galra, and leave a small round mark when they put their suction cups on Keith’s forehead in a gesture of gratitude. Despite their kindness, Keith leaves as soon as he can, because he really doesn’t want to speak to anyone. Well, that isn’t the full truth: he’d like to speak to Lance, because there was something about the way he helped Keith snap out of it when he froze that makes his cheeks burn and his heart ache. But thinking of how the last time he opened up to Lance he ended up falling asleep next to him, he decides not to, and locks himself in his room instead. He knows that the moment where things really got bad, when they were really all at risk for the first time that day – he knows that moment was his fault, and knows that he could have avoided it had he been more careful of his team. He doesn’t know when it is exactly that he messed up (was it when he left to go work with the Blade? Or before that? Or had he never been a good leader in the first place?) and even worse, he doesn’t know how to find his way back. He hates it.

A knock on the door distracts him from his thoughts, and before Keith can say anything, Shiro walks in, quietly. He sits down next to Keith on the edge of his bed, and for a few moments they just sit in silence.

“Are you okay?” Shiro asks eventually, his voice.

Life is funny, Keith thinks. Just a few years ago, he would have scoffed at the question and refused to answer, but as he glances at Shiro, who is looking at him with his brow furrowed, he finds that he genuinely wants to tell the truth. Maybe Adam has been ruffing off on both of them.

“I messed up, today,” he says. “We risked a potential disaster, and it was my fault. I feel like I’ve let them all down, Shiro.”

“Things went fine, Keith,” Shiro looks at him carefully, and Keith wants to look away, but holds his gaze instead. “Your team had your back.”

“I’m meant to be their leader,” Keith insists. “Not a liability. I keep thinking that they’ve hated me since I left, and there is nothing I can do to fix it.”

Shiro shakes his head, a small smile appearing on his face. “It seems to me,” he says, “like you’ve been worrying a lot about what they think of you, and what they expect, without actually doing the most obvious thing.”

“What?”

Shiro shrugs. “Ask them. They are _your_ team and they do want to work with you. You wouldn’t be able to pilot the black lion otherwise.”

Keith sighs nervously. He desperately wants to argue, but deep down, he knows Shiro is right. Still, the idea is terrifying.

“By the way, I wanted to ask you something,” Shiro continues, prompted by Shiro’s silence. “Why does Adam keep teasing you about Lance?”

No. Nope. No. There’s a reason why, excruciating as it was, Keith had decided to have this conversation with Adam and not Shiro. And the reason was, it would be ten times more excruciating having it with Shiro. A heart-to-heart was something. This was... something else, and Keith doesn’t have the energy for it.

“You know how he’s just always teasing me about stuff,” he mutters, evasively. “But while we are on the subject, how are things with him going?”

Shiro’s expression changes then, a small, incredibly soft smile appearing on his face. He’s clearly so in love, Keith kind of wants to shout.

“We’re good,” Shiro says calmly, “we’re taking it slow. All the things that happened to the two of us, we can’t expect them to just go away. But we’re good. We are happy,” his tone is soft, pensive, but then it changes again, and he says more practically, “I still don’t get the Lance thing though.”

No. Absolutely not.

“Alright, I’m going to go speak with the others!” Keith shouts, heading out the door before Shiro can get another word in, barely aware that he’s just leaving him alone and confused in his bedroom.

In the rush to get as far away from talking to Shiro about Lance as possible, Keith straight up crashes into James Griffin, and groans, because it looks like this is becoming a habit.

“Oh,” James says awkwardly. “Hey, Keith.”

“Hi,” Keith says, and starts walking away before he can say anything else, but then stops in his tracks, because maybe Shiro had a point. He turns towards James. “Look, I wanted to say-” he gestures at nothing in particular, “thanks for the help today. We couldn’t have made it without you guys.”

James shrugs. “It’s okay,” his expression is slightly serious now. “It feels like we keep telling you this, but we’ve got your back.”

That makes Keith smile. “Thank you.”

“Also, I just wanted…” the words rush out of James’s mouth, who seems surprised that he even said it. He looks at Keith nervously. “I wanted to apologise, for how rude I was to you back at school. I was jealous of you, and I acted in all the wrong ways because of it, and I’m sorry.”

Keith swallows. It’s not just that he wasn’t expecting this, it’s that his words sound so sincere that his heart contracts a little bit.

“It’s alright,” he says after a moment of silence. “We both changed.”

“Yeah. I mean, you’re the leader of Voltron, now.” His eyes widen as he says it, which makes Keith wonder – admiration?

“And you lead the MFEs.”

“Yeah.” James look down, then asks, cautiously, “Is it difficult for you?”

Keith thinks about his conversation with Shiro, just a few minutes ago. “It is,” he sighs. “But it’s all about relying on your friends. If you are a good leader and trust them enough, they will see you through everything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? A chapter with actual action? Bianca, are you mad???  
> (Can you tell I actually can't write anything that isn't dialogue or internal monologue from this? Because. Yeah.)  
> Yes, I am a week late, because I reaaally needed to catch up with the writing ahead and my health keeps being shit, so that's. An experience.  
> Anyway. I lowkey hate most of this chapter, but hopefully you guys will like it. I just wanted to write Shiro and Adam being a power couple, OKAY? Also, I haven't re-read this as much as I usually do before posting so. It's probably full of typos. Sorry.  
> As usual, feel free to come shout at me on @officiallyadoptingshinyahiiragi on tumblr, and hopefully I will see you next week!
> 
> Next chapter features Allura doing some really cool shit. That's it. That's the whole plot.


	6. The Space Shenanigans Arc, part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> if the writers won't give Allura enough space, I will.

“Is this supposed to be a pep talk? Because, you know, you could use some work.” Pidge says with an eyebrow raised. Her voice is sharp.

Keith groans, but he supposes she’s right. He came to speak to the other paladins to apologise about what had happened during the mission, but somewhere between his brain and his mouth the words got all tangled up and it sounded more like he was calling them all incompetent instead. He wants to crawl under a rock and never come out.

Lance is looking at him with a frown on his face, biting his lip like he’s trying to figure out what the hell is going on, but Hunk raises a hand, slowly.

“Hold on, Pidge.” He says, and his face is so scolding that she looks down awkwardly. “Keith, do that again.”

“Right.” Keith takes a deep breath. Then, “I’m sorry about what went on earlier. I know that since I left for the Blade of Marmora, our teamwork hasn’t really been the same, and I take full responsibility for that. But I want to thank you for having my back, and I want us to fix what’s wrong. I want to work with you guys to improve.”

Allura smiles at him, softly. “It’s okay, Keith. No one is mad at you, but it’s good that you came to talk to us about this.” Keith smiles back, and both her and Hunk shoot at pointed glance at Pidge.

“Sorry for being mean,” she says. “I’m actually happy that you came to apologise, and all that.”

“Sorry for calling you incompetent,” Keith shrugs, “I just – sometimes I want to say something, and the words just get all…” he gestures vaguely to make his point.

“Yeah, we know,” Hunk groans, exchanging a _look_ with Pidge, and Keith _has no idea what that’s supposed to mean._ Instead of focusing on it, he swallows, and gathers the courage to say one last thing.

“Also, Lance?” He breathes out, and the other looks up at him, his head slightly tilted to the side, like he’s confused. “Thanks for helping me deal with that mess. I would have panicked without you.”

Lance seems to inexplicably go red at the praise, and Keith can feel his face flush too. He wants to just, jump into the vacuum of space and never come back.

“It’s alright,” Lance says, and his tone sounds casual, if a bit breathless. “We are a team, and all that.” Before he finishes speaking, his lips curl into a small smile, and Keith smiles back.

***

Hunk wakes up with a bad feeling, and that is to say, a real bad feeling. He’s learned to divide his bad feelings into two categories: bad feelings, and real bad feelings. Bad feelings are usually related to things that will be generally uncomfortable, like Keith and Lance being idiots, and real bad feelings are about actually dangerous stuff, like the weird Earth hallucination that they had when they were stranded in space. The thing is, the aliens they liberated from the Galra camps, they had a look on their face like they had a real bad feeling, too. They thanked them profusely, but despite being free for the first time in years, they didn’t look like they’d been liberated – just like they were temporarily free from their work.

Hunk gets up, makes breakfast for himself, then uses Kosmo to send breakfast to everyone else on the Atlas, and then goes to talk to the aliens.

***

“So what you are saying is,” Pidge says, and her voice sounds like she’s really at the edge of her patience, “that all the almost dying from yesterday was for nothing?”

“Not for nothing,” Shiro interrupts her, but his voice is tired. “We still saved those people, and definitely bought them to organise a defence.”

“ _We_ don’t have time to organise a defence,” Adam says, and Shiro turns to look at him, one eyebrow raised. Adam sighs, like he isn’t particularly fond of what he is about to say, but has to say it anyway. “I’m trying to be realistic here. It took four years for Earth to organise the defence against the Galra, and we all know how well that went. Our priority right now is to defeat Haggar, and I think it’s implausible that we can organise a good defence here if we need to do that.”

Shiro gives him a subtle look, and to Hunk it looks like he might be annoyed, except there is something in his posture – like he knows that what Adam is saying is true, and he is lowkey grateful to him for saying it. And, yeah, Adam is right, but still.

“We can’t just leave them at the mercy of the Galra!” Hunk shouts, throwing his hands in the air in frustration. After going to visit the _sckchok,_ who turned out to be the alien leader, Hunk had found out that the reason why they were still expecting a storm was that, on a planet only a few hours away, was a big Galra colony. Which meant, that even if they’d been freed for now, it was likely that as soon as the Atlas left, they would be invaded again. As soon as he’d left the sckchok, Hunk had gathered the whole crew.

“What I don’t understand,” Krolia’s voice cuts the air, and suddenly everyone in the room turns to look at her. “Is why they didn’t send reinforcements when we attacked. Did the Galra here even try to get in contact with them?”

“I scanned their computers,” Pidge scrunches her lips, like she’s lost in thought. “It doesn’t look to me like they had any contact with a nearby Galra colony. Unless it was so shielded that even I couldn’t decipher it, which is fairly unlikely.”

“I think you should send us forward,” Kolivan says. His voice is deep, and while Hunk used to be slightly terrified of him, he finds that he trusts him on this. “Keith, Krolia, Acxa and I. I might be wrong, but I have an idea on what this colony might be, and if I’m wrong and we go, we are less likely to be caught and found out.”

Shiro frowns. “What are you talking about?”

“This is a secret I’d rather not share,” Kolivan sighs, and he looks genuinely contrived. “Not unless I absolutely have to.”

“We’ll just check it out,” Keith intervenes, looking intensely at Shiro. “There is no harm in that.”

For a few seconds, both Adam and Shiro look at Keith carefully, and Keith stares back, his gaze firm. Adam in particular looks like he’s about to say something, but then Shiro turns towards him and nods ever so slightly, and he looks down.

“Alright,” Shiro says. “Be careful.”

***

It’s awkward. Keith can’t tell if this is due to Kolivan refusing to tell them any details about what they are looking for, Kosmo strolling up and down the hovercraft and periodically appearing and disappearing, or Acxa awkwardly hovering in a corner, clearly unsure of what to do and whether she should be there in the first place. To be fair, Keith isn’t sure he should be there either, but Krolia seems to be dead set on trusting Kolivan on this, and Shiro agreed, so he’s just waiting and hoping that no other shoe drops.

And while he is nervous, Acxa seems to be on a whole different level of concern. Keith wonders what it must be like for her, to face hostile Galra after having spent years fighting at their side and following Lotor’s orders. Every once in a while, she looks at Keith like she’s lost, and he doesn’t think he can blame her.

“You still don’t want to tell us what’s going on?” She asks Kolivan after they’ve been on the fly for long enough for the tension to become unbearable.

Kolivan sighs, looking down at the controls. “I can’t say. If I’m wrong, there is no point in you knowing, and if I’m right, I guess you’ll find out soon enough.”

“You still don’t trust me.” Acxa’s voice comes out bitter, tired. “I told you I just want to end the fighting, but I can’t prove it to you if you don’t give me an opportunity to.”

“It’s not that,” Keith cuts in, because her voice sounds so hurt that he feels the need to reassure her. “He didn’t tell anyone else. We trust you.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t know what this is about either,” Krolia shrugs. “I’m actually surprised they let us go. Shiro’s partner looked like he was about to have a breakdown when you refused to say.”

Keith had noticed it too, the way Adam’s jaw had set defiantly when Kolivan had skirted around replying to Shiro’s question.

“He trusts Shiro,” he explains. “And Shiro trusts me, and I trust you. I guess he knows that the only way we can get out of all this is if we believe in each other.”

“They are the men who raised you,” Krolia says slowly, and when Keith turns towards her she’s looking at him carefully, like she’s scared of what he will say.

“I mean, sort of,” Keith says. He thinks back to the very first time he met Shiro, and he refused to let him get into trouble for stealing his car, and to the very first time he met Adam, who only had to ask one question to make sure he wasn’t going to hurt Shiro to welcome him into his life. He thinks about that time Shiro had tried to bake a cake for his birthday and almost set the kitchen on fire, and about how the following year Adam had personally taken charge of baking. “Yeah, they are,” He corrects himself.

“They did a good job.” Krolia says with a smile, and her eyes are so filled with regret that Keith almost wants to drop everything just to hug her.

Instead, he says, “Thanks, Mum.” Her smile brightens.

They stay silent for a while longer, after that, until the radio starts beeping dramatically.

“We have an upcoming message from a ship nearby,” Kolivan warns them, looking down at the screen in front of him. “They’re using Galra coding.”

“Should we call for reinforcements?” Krolia asks, slowly reaching for her sheathed knife.

Kolivan shakes his head. “They’re practically raising a white flag.”

Keith sees Acxa tensing, looking back and forth between him and Kolivan. “That isn’t the Galra way,” she says, but there is a hint of hesitation in her voice.

“No, I know,” Kolivan raises his hands in a soothing gesture. “But I know who these people are. I’m going to warn the _Atlas_ that we can make safe landing on this planet.”

***

They decide that just in case of danger, the MFE pilots will remain on the Atlas, supervised by Veronica. Adam isn’t really feeling great about the whole _let’s land on a Galra planet with no weapons ready_ thing. Sure, Kolivan says they can trust them, and sure, Keith says they can trust Kolivan. Still, Adam has considered the situation carefully, and overall, the number of hostile Galra they’ve met greatly surpasses the number of friendly Galra they’ve met, so yeah, not feeling great about the whole situation.

“Are you sure about this?” He asks, as Takashi carefully manoeuvres the Atlas to land on the Galra planet.

“Keith and Kolivan are,” he replies, shooting him a sideways glance.

“I’m asking if you are.”

Takashi looks up at him. “Yeah,” he says. “Is that okay?”

Adam nods, slowly. “Of course.”

They remain silent until they have safely landed, and head to the exits, where Keith and the others should already be waiting for them. Just before coming out, Adam inhales slowly, and unconsciously grabs Takashi’s sleeve – an instinct that remained despite being apart for years.

“You don’t need to come down with us,” Takashi says, looking at him very carefully.

“No, it’s okay,” Adam scrambles for the words to explain why he’s so wary. He takes a deep breath. “I’m not scared,” he exhales. “But these people, they’ve hurt me, and worse than that, they’ve hurt you. I think I’m angry, and I worry – I don’t want to jeopardise whatever it is we’re doing here.”

Takashi’s smile is so soft that Adam feels like he might start crying, which – it’s strange, because he never used to cry before. He’d cried when his mother had died, and when Takashi had left for Kerberos (and maybe, just maybe, he’d cried watching The Lion King once. Maybe.), but overall he’d always thought he was too practical of a person to cry. But since he’d gotten news that Takashi had died, and then that he was alive, and then having spent years on his own in the desert – now he feels like he’s constantly crying. The funny thing is, he doesn’t think he hates it either.

“Try not to punch anyone,” Takashi says softly. “If you do, we’ll just pretend I lost control of my arm and accidentally hit someone. You just act casual.”

Adam snorts. “Okay,” he says, pushing his glasses back. “Let’s do this, then.”

They open the port, and all the main members of the resistance against the Galra step, unharmed, on a Galra dominated planet.

***

There is, unsurprisingly, a whole load of Galra. There is also, more surprisingly, a lot of different species that are very clearly not Galra, who don’t seem to be particularly unsettled by the fact that they are surrounded by – well, Galra.

When they get off the Atlas, they find Keith and the others waiting for them, along with another Galra that Adam has never seen before, and two humanoid aliens, one with green skin and a very long nose, and another one who looks slightly more like a human girl, with bright pink skin. As his feet touch the ground, Adam suddenly realises that, if you don’t count Princess Allura, this is the very first time that he actually meets an alien civilisation that isn’t actively trying to kill him, which. Everything is so colourful and vibrant and alive and his head might be spinning a little bit, and it isn’t only due to the strain of turning around to take everything in with only one functioning eye.

“This is Katar,” Kolivan says, gesturing to the unknown Galra, “she’s an old friend of mine. And these are Sting, and Ra-Kay.” He points respectively to the long-nosed aliens, and to the bright pink girl.

“Welcome to Solian,” Ra-Kay says giving them a small smile. “It’s an honour to see the Paladins of Voltron on our planet.”

Katar must be aware of the confused looks that everyone is throwing at her, because she adds, “Please, come with us to the Conglomerate. We will tell you the story of our Solen colony.”

***

The Conglomerate, as Katar called it, is actually a single building made out of two different materials, one looking like glass and the other a smooth black. It’s dome shaped, a honeycomb pattern running through the walls.

“The Conglomerate is where the Solen council meets,” Sting explains, his voice sounding (perhaps unsurprisingly) very nasal. “There is three sentient species on Solian: us, the Rayans” – he points at Ra-Kay – “and the Galra.” He points at Katar, then continues. “Every species chooses representatives for the Council and they regularly meet in the Conglomerate. That way, everyone’s needs are met.”

“I don’t understand,” Allura says, from somewhere behind Adam. “Do you just…” her voice falters, like she’s worried about saying the wrong thing. Adam definitely understands her confusion.

“You are surprised by how us Galra are living at peace with the others,” Katar says, like she expected her reaction. “That’s understandable, but there is things you don’t know about the Galra. Things very few know.”

“Explain to us, then,” Allura says, as they enter the Conglomerate. The two different materials make the lighting surprising, with patches of light and shadow all over the room.

Katar gestures for them to sit, and Ra-Kay starts talking as everyone takes their place on the floor. “The Galra are not indigenous from Solian,” she explains. “It was hundreds of years ago, that a Galra ship crashed near our main city, Ryian. At first, our ancestors thought they were being attacked, but when they went to investigate the ship, they only found a family: two Galras, with their new-born child. He was heavily wounded, and both her and the child needed urgent care.”

“The Council took a vote,” Sting explains, “and they were treated by our finest physicians. By the time they had recovered, they were so grateful that they offered to help us develop our resources, shared their technology with us. They stayed, and their child grew up here. They practically became Solen.”

The way they’re telling the story, Adam notices – it’s almost like they’ve told it before, many times. Like it’s a fairy tale, a legend passed down generation by generation.

“And at some point,” Katar continues, “word began to spread that this was a place where the Galra who did not want to be involved with the wars could come to, and be at peace. More and more Galra families fled and came here to live peacefully, and slowly they became part of the life in the colony. Now we’ve been at peace for generations, and we’re happy as it is.”

“I still don’t understand,” Acxa whispers. She’s looking in the distance, like she can’t quite focus on anything that’s going on. “Why are you not with the resistance? Do you just not fight?”

“We have helped the resistance in the past,” Katar replies, “but this is a place where people come looking for peace. Not everyone is born a warrior.”

“You’re Galra,” Acxa protests. “You _are_ born warriors. That’s who we are.”

Katar raises an eyebrow. “Do you really think that,” she says, “or is that just what you’ve always been taught to believe?”

Acxa doesn’t reply, and looks down, at a loss. Carefully, Kolivan touches her shoulder. “There is more colonies like this all over the universe,” he says softly, “Katar is right. You don’t have to be a warrior, not unless you want to.”

She looks up at him, but her eyes look like she can’t even see him. All of a sudden, she gets up, and runs out of the Conglomerate.

Silence falls upon the room as they all look at each other confusedly. Kolivan makes to get up, but Keith raises a hand to stop him.

“Give her some time,” he says. “This is probably difficult for her.”

“Not only for her,” Princess Allura says, her voice soft. She’s looking down at her hands. “I am struggling to come to terms with this. I thought-” she shakes her head. “I thought that no matter what, you were still… fighters.”

Adam notices two things now: the first, is that Lance is looking at her, frowning carefully. The second, is that Keith is looking at Lance looking at her, also frowning. It’s almost funny.

Katar looks at Allura, with one eyebrow raised. “Not all of us. I hope you can understand that.”

“No, you’re right.” Allura replies, her tone uncertain. “I am just surprised, I guess. I knew the Galra weren’t all bad, of course” -she gestures vaguely towards Keith and Krolia’s direction, “but I didn’t really think – I never thought of you as peaceful.”

“That’s how it is on Solian,” Katar explains gently, “and on countless other colonies across the galaxy. Not all of us grow up under the empire, and not all of us believe in its values.”

“Of course,” Allura says, but her voice is still uncertain.

“Although, all of this risks to end soon,” Ra-Kay interrupts, shooting a glance at Katar, “if we can’t find a way to stop the epidemy.”

Katar frowns at her, like she means to scold her, and Ra-Kay raises her snow white eyebrows at her.

“What epidemy are you talking about?” Keith asks. In the corner of his eye, Adam can see Lance’s head snapping to look at him. He turns to raise his eyebrows at Takashi, who seems fully unaware of the whole ordeal, so he makes a mental note to talk to him about it, possibly while drunk. He wonders if there is any wine on the Atlas.

Katar looks at Ra-Kay like she’s annoyed, but takes a deep breath and explains. “Some of us are dying, and we can’t understand why. They’re just being consumed of vital force. It’s affecting peaceful Galra colonies all over the galaxy.”

“Haggar is draining your Quintessence,” Allura’s voice comes out fast, like she’s talking on instinct. Suddenly, she looks surprised to have spoken at all. “I mean, I don’t know. But she might be trying to harness more Quintessence, and she would know how to do it on a Galra, and not care if it’s any of you, because they would all see you as traitors. And that would explain why you’re being drained of your force.” She shoots a look at Coran, who gently tilts his head to the side, offering her a small smile. Adam isn’t sure what the exchange means, but he can see that the two are both thinking about the same thing.

“Any advice on how we could solve that?” Ra-Kay asks, and Allura looks down awkwardly.

“I’m not sure,” she says, but Adam doubts she’s being fully honest.

“It doesn’t matter,” Katar cuts her off, and she sounds frustrated. “This is not your problem.” Her voice softens then. “You are welcome to stay on Solian for as long as you want. Sting will show you where you can rest.”

***

Near the Conglomerate there is a number of smaller domes which, according to Sting, is where the members of the Council stay before their meetings. Allura gets a whole dome to herself, and she just sits on the floor for a while, thinking about the things she learned today. It’s frustrating, because with Keith, and Kolivan and then even Lotor, she thought she’d overcome her bias against the Galra – they had greatly proven that they weren’t all destruction-hungry monsters, but the idea that some of them might genuinely not want to be involved in any kind of fighting still leaves her baffled.

Someone knocks on the door, and in the time it takes her to look up at it, Coran is already coming in. He sits down next to her, quietly, and for a while they just stay silent, comforted by each other’s presence.

“What do you make of that?” Coran asks eventually, looking up at her.

Allura sighs. “I’m surprised,” she says. “I’m wondering if I should be.”

“We made Voltron to defend the universe,” Coran says slowly, “to bring peace. Those were ideals that the Galra used to believe in. It’s good to know that they haven’t been fully lost.”

Allura nods, slowly. “You’re right,” she says.

The universe is a surprise, she remembers. Sometimes there is corruption, sometimes there is paladins who come from a planet far, far away, sometimes there is peace. There is no ground rules to the universe.

“About the epidemy,” Coran adds, his tone a bit uncertain. “Could you help?”

Allura looks down at her hands, frustrated. “I genuinely don’t know. And what scares me is, I’m concerned about trying.”

“Why?”

She shrugs, trying to put it into words. “I think in part, I’m worried about not succeeding. And in part, I am worried about succeeding, and-”she falters, “- I guess after Lotor, I am still very wary of helping the Galra.”

“You don’t owe them anything, Princess,” Coran says, looking at her carefully. “But you are a good person. And whatever you decide to do, I know it will be the right thing.”

Allura smiles a little bit. All of a sudden, she wonders what would have happened if she hadn’t had Coran by her side for all this time.

“Thank you,” she says, and he smiles back at her. _Almost like a father_.

***

Keith finds Acxa not too far from the Conglomerate, sitting in what seems to be a space diner and staring sort of awkwardly at a tray full of slimy, bright yellow food.

“Did you order that?” Keith asks, taking the seat in front of her.

“No,” she shakes her head. “I was looking for an excuse to sit down and when they asked me if I wanted to try their specialty I wasn’t sure how to say no.”

Keith shrugs. Yeah, that sounds fair.

“I don’t think they realise I am not…” Acxa looks down, trying to find the right words. “-from here.”

She looks up at Keith, and she almost looks like she’s scared of what he’s going to say. He sighs, because this – he is not good at this. But he promised himself he would try.

“Are you feeling okay?” he asks.

“I’m just-” she gestures vaguely, and suddenly Keith realises, they’re both bad at this. “I served Lotor for years. I wasn’t sure it was what I wanted to do, but I did it anyways, because I thought that was what I was born to do. And then I met you, and maybe realised there was a different path I could take. Right my wrongs.” She taps her fingers on the table, in a nervous gesture. Some of the goo in the bowl trembles. “But I am tired of fighting, of all of it. And I can’t believe… it’s so strange to me that they can have a different life. Away from all the fighting, and the death, and-” her voice chokes up a little bit, and Keith realises she isn’t going to say anything anymore. So he takes a deep breath, and for once, tries to put his thoughts into coherent words.

“When I found out I was half Galra,” he starts, “I hated it. I’d just been fighting the Galra for months, and all of a sudden I was one of them. I thought I was… wrong, broken. My friends weren’t really into it either.” He remembers Hunk, who’d been so scared and confused at first. He remembers how scared and confused he himself had been at first. “And then I found the Blade, and realised that, you know, they weren’t defined by being Galra, they weren’t necessarily bad, and neither was I. That being who I was actually opened up opportunities that I could never have imagined.”

Lance had said that he saw Keith as _the future,_ and his heart contracts a little bit. He’d been so mean afterwards, and Lance didn’t deserve that. He should apologise, but that would imply telling Lance why he’d said that, and that is way more than Keith can handle. He shakes his head, trying to get rid of the thought.

“But my point is,” he continues, “that before fighting with the Blade, my mum… she fell in love with my dad. They had me, and they were happy. The Galra, _us,_ we are not necessarily fighters. We can be that, or we can be helpers, or lovers, or all at once. And I think you should allow yourself to believe that.”

Acxa looks up at him, with a small smile on her face. “Did you learn how to give solemn speeches from Shiro? Because he looks like the sort of guy.”

Keith shakes his head, but chuckles to himself a little bit. “No, he’s good at that whole… talking thing. I’m not. Wish I could learn from him.”

She raises her hands. “I think you’re better at this than you give yourself credit for. When you try.”

Keith wants to argue further, but this is the first social interaction he hasn’t fully messed up in a while, so he tries to get back to what he was talking about before accidentally falling into a pit of self-deprecation.

“Leaving all that behind,” he says, “and for what concerns righting your wrongs, you’ve done plenty of work to help us, and you’ve been forgiven. Now it’s about doing what’s right for you, not what you think is expected of you.”

“You _are_ good at talking,” Acxa repeats, and the smile on her face is becoming sort of melancholic and playful at the same time. “Just make some effort, Keith.”

***

When Allura gets to it, it’s not a hard decision at all, so she gets up, and finds Katar.

“I think I can help you,” is all she has to say, before she leads her to a hospital, where hundreds of Galra are laying in beds, asleep, some so far gone that they barely look alive.

Allura gets close to one of them, gently places her hands on the sides of his face. She isn’t really sure what she’s doing, but she breathes slowly, trying to focus until she can feel his heartbeat, the blood coursing through his vein, and deep, deep down, something else, something different. She reaches out, and suddenly she can feel it all over the room and then outside of it, all around the planet, in this galaxy and so many others. She focuses on it, slowly, and breathes out, until it goes from a low, almost lifeless pulse to a powerful, powerful force.

She doesn’t realise she’s done it until the Galra whose face she’s holding gasps, his yellow eyes locking into hers, filled with gratitude. _He knows,_ she realises, everyone in the room does. When she looks up, her friends are there, and she doesn’t know how long it’s been, but all the Galra who were nothing but broken puppets where she came in are looking at her like she saved them. The incredible part is, she did save them.

Allura’s head is spinning, and she falls only to find warm harms to hold her.

“You did good, ‘Lura,” Lance whispers, wrapping her with his harms. “You did good.”

She barely registers his face, happy and proud, before her vision goes fully black.

***

Allura wakes up in her bed, in her room near the Conglomerate. Lance is sitting on the floor across from her, fidgeting with what looks like a videogame console, but he puts it down as soon as she opens her eyes.

“Hey,” he says, and gets up to hand her a glass of water. “How are you feeling?”

She feels… good, actually. Still a bit dazed, but really not as tired as she thought she would be.

“I’m okay.” She takes a sip of water, then looks up at Lance. “How long did I sleep?”

“Almost three days now,” Lance shrugs, and well, that would explain why she isn’t feeling so tired, “we all took turns looking after you. I think Shiro and Adam were in here together, so like, if the furniture looks messy…”

Allura shakes her head. “Please, stop talking about that,” she says, but with a small smile, so she can be sure Lance doesn’t think she’s annoyed. “Did it work?” She asks then, because even if she thought she’d made it, that she’d cured them, she needs to be sure.

“They’re all recovering,” Lance says, grinning. “In other colonies as well. You were amazing.”

Allura feels the blush coming onto her face, and looks down, because – she likes Lance. Really, she does. He’s kind and caring and smart and passionate. But he used to have a crush on her, and doesn’t want him to get the wrong idea. After Lotor, she’s staying off romance for a while.

Maybe he senses her discomfort, because he adds, in a lower voice, “Also, there is something I wanted to tell you about? I mean, this isn’t really the right time, but I thought, might as well, you know…”

She looks up at him, and Lance stops talking. He swallows.

“What is it?” She says, softly, trying not to appear too nervous herself. This is it. The moment of truth.

“Uh, okay,” he takes a deep breath. “You should know that I had, like, a huge crush on you.”

_I know_ doesn’t seem like the right answer, so Allura just waits. But this is good. Past tense is good.

“And you probably figured it out already, but I think I had to come clear,” Lance’s face has gone fully red by now, but he keeps on talking. “Anyway, it’s gone now. I don’t know when or how, but it’s gone. And I, uh, I wanted to clarify that, because I feel like otherwise there is just going to be a lot of underlying awkwardness, which I’d rather avoid, you know?” He scratches his head nervously. “Anyway, that’s what I wanted to say. You’re my friend and I love you, and I just thought that you should know that.”

Allura smiles. “I love you too,” she says, softly. “Thank you for telling me. I think you know I don’t – I never…” she stutters, “I never felt the same way.” Lance’s face goes a bit dark then, so she adds, “But Lance, I think you are incredible. This team, none of this, would exist without you.”

“Without you, either,” Lance replies quickly. “What I mean is… we are a good team. All of us, and a lot of that is thanks to you. And I’m so glad to have you as my friend.”

“I’m glad too,” Allura replies softly, and they smile at each other.

***

They stay on Solian for two days, which are mostly spent meeting Galra (but also Rayans, and whatever Sting’s species is) coming to thank Allura. She responds gracefully to their praise, taken aback by the number of people she once would have called enemies now kneeling in front of her. _Born to be a queen_ , Lance thinks looking at her, proud and fond at the same time. He’s never felt better about his relationship with Allura than he does now, now that he can safely say that there will be no more adoring her, no more awkwardness. He’s so proud of her.

When they eventually depart, a huge mass of Solens assembles in front of the Atlas to bide them goodbye.

“We will never know how to thank you enough, Princess Allura,” Katar says, speaking for all of her people. “It was not your responsibility to help us, but you did it anyway. We promise that Solian will always be a safe haven for you and your friends, whatever you may need.”

Allura blushes a bit, but nods solemnly. “Thank you for your hospitality,” she says. “We hope that this might be the start of a new bridge between our civilisations.”

Katar smiles. “We would be honoured.”

And then, something strange happens. Katar kneels, and so does Ra-Kay, and Sting, and slowly, the whole crowd behind them.

Allura’s mouth opens ever so slightly, and she turns to look at Shiro, who smiles at her. Both he and Coran are gleaming with pride.

“Please, do not kneel,” Allura says, and her voice is firm. “You are leaders of Solian. You are as important as I am, if not more.”

“I am showing respect to a queen,” Katar replies. Allura bites her lip and then extends her hand, and helps Katar get up. Slowly, everyone else follows.

“Thank you.” Allura whispers, low enough that only the closest to her can hear.

“Thanks to you,” Katar says with a smile.

Allura turns towards the rest of the group. “Shall we?” she asks, and they all murmur in agreement, still looking at her in awe.

They’re almost at the entrance port when Keith stops them, confusedly looking around.

“Wait,” he says. “Where is Acxa?”

She was with them just a few seconds ago, but she hasn’t moved, staying back with Ra-Kay, Katar, and Sting.

She takes a step forward, clearing her voice. “I’m staying,” she explains. “I will come if you call for help, but for now… it’s time I start to lead the life I want.”

Keith smiles softly, and takes a few steps towards her, then throws his arms around her.

“Take care of yourself,” he says.

She smiles back. “Thank you, for showing me the way.” She leans forward, and kisses him on the cheek, gently, and Lance’s face suddenly feels very warm and his stomach very tight. He wants to look away, so he turns to his right, where Adam is burying his head on Shiro’s shoulder, laughing.

“I don’t understand why you find this so funny,” Shiro says, his tone uncertain.

Adam’s gaze crosses Lance’s, and suddenly he’s shaken by another burst of laughter. “Remind me tell you about this later,” he tells Shiro, and then laughs again.

Keith starts making his way back to the Atlas, and points aggressively at Adam, “You shut up,” he says.

Lance looks at him, and he still feels – weird. Warm. And tingly.

Adam dries his eyes behind the glasses, before laughing again, and then takes Shiro’s hand and leads him back to the Atlas, and with that they all make their way back onto the ship.

Before coming in, Allura turns one last time, and the crowd is shouting her name, calling her a queen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A chapter update? What???  
> I know, I know. I'm not gonna lie, this semester is kicking me in the butt, which means that updates are going to keep getting less regular. I still have one chapter and a half written already, and I'm definitely going to finish this fic, but updates will probably end up being a bit messy until the end of exams. Sorry about that, but I'm dying.  
> As for this chapter,,, not going to lie, I don't love it. I really wanted to give Allura, and what's happening in the rest of the universe, some space, but I feel like I had to move a bunch of different storylines forward at the same time, so I feel like overall this chapter is kinda clunky and all over the place. Because of this, I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible, so I didn't reread it as much as I normally do, so if there is any typos let me know. Hope you still like it.  
> Thanks so much for the great support that you are all giving to this fic, and sorry I made you wait so long for a mediocre update. I will see you (hopefully) soon.
> 
> The next chapter features Team Save The Universe getting a well deserved break, and Shiro and Adam going on a beach date.


	7. The Filler Chapter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> LISTEN I JUST WANTED SHIRO AND ADAM TO GO ON A BEACH DATE IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK

The Atlas is doing well. That is, until an alarm goes off all over the ship, loud and deafening, and wakes everyone up. Shiro and Adam scramble out of bed and head to the bridge still in their pyjamas and with guns at the ready, expecting an attack. Instead, they find Pidge and Hunk on the controls pointing at small dots on a map. The alarm is now off, but Shiro’s heart is still about to beat out of his chest.

“What… was that?” Adam asks breathlessly. Shiro notices now that his hair is sticking to one side. It’s cute.

“We’re running out of battery,” Pidge explains with a shrug, and opens her mouth to say something else, but before she can do that Keith cartwheels onto the bridge, and unsheathes his sword.

“Woah!” Hunk shouts, raising his hands in a soothing gesture. “No need for that.”

“Why did you fucking cartwheel?” Adam says, running a hand through his hair, which only succeeds in making it even more messy. Shiro’s heart could literally burst right now.

Keith shrugs. “I thought we were being attacked,”

“That doesn’t explain the cartwheel!” Adam shouts, at the same time Pidge says, “No, just out of battery.”

Adam turns towards her with a finger raised. “Also,” he says, “why the _fuck_ is the battery alarm that loud?”

Shiro notices he’s swearing, which must mean that he’s just releasing the tension from being woken up in the middle of the night. He remembers fondly that the first time he’d heard Adam swear, it had been in a similar situation, when they’d been woken at 2AM for a surprise simulation.

Hunk, bless his soul, gestures calmly. “We didn’t think it would be that loud,” he explains, “but we did set it up so that we would definitely do something about it. Don’t want to end up floating in the vacuum of space until we run out of air, you know.”

“That was so grim,” Adam says, raising his eyebrows. Shiro gently places his hand on his shoulder, and feels Adam’s muscles relax under his touch. It’s incredibly endearing.

“What do we do, then?” Shiro asks, turning to Pidge and Hunk.

“Just land somewhere,” Pidge shrugs. “The Atlas self-recharges, we’ll just have to give it, what, twelve hours?”

“Something along those lines, probably,” Hunk agrees. “There’s a planet nearby that would be perfect. It’s got a huge deserted area. I think it’s a beach.”

In that moment, Lance bursts in. Unlike the others, he changed into his paladin uniform, and he has his bayard ready. “Who do we need to fight?” He shouts.

Adam hides his face into his hands. “At least you didn’t fucking cartwheel,” he groans.

“Why? Who is doing cartwheels?”

Adam silently gestures towards Keith, who shouts, “Listen! Cartwheels give more energy to an attack! It was a perfectly sensible move!” Adam only shakes his head.

In that moment, Shiro notices Lance turning towards Keith and taking the ensemble – his pyjamas, the unsheathed sword and hair all over the place, and – are his ears going a bit red? Shiro has a thought. He makes a mental note to mention it to Adam soon.

“No need to fight,” Hunk explains calmly, his voice slightly raised to makes sure everyone listens, “we’re just taking a pit-stop to recharge the Atlas. There’s a planet with a big beach nearby, we’re just going to land there.”

“Hunk,” Lance says, a grin finding its way onto his face, “my good friend. Did you just say beach?”

“Uhm, yeah?” Hunk’s tone is slightly concerned.

“Where we’re supposed to stay for several hours while we wait for the Atlas to recharge?”

“Yes?”

“This is wonderful,” Lance declares. “I don’t know about you guys, but I am going for a swim.”

A new kind of tension fills the room, and everyone turns to Shiro expectantly. He looks at Adam who, after a moment of hesitation, shrugs in agreement.

Shiro sighs. “I guess we are going to the beach.”

***

After they eventually let everyone know that they’re not being assaulted by murderous aliens and they make landing, everyone starts getting off the Atlas in small groups and heading to the beach. Shiro doesn’t really know who thought that speedos would be absolutely necessary in a life or death mission in outer space (that’s a lie. It was probably Matt.), but he finds he’s very glad for it and changes quickly, then sits down and waits for Adam.

When the bathroom door eventually opens, Adam is still wearing his ordinary clothes, holding the bath suit he should have been wearing instead in his left hand.

He takes one short look at Shiro, who suddenly feels underdressed in his annoyingly tight speedos, and gives out a low whistle.

“Wow,” he says, “didn’t think you could get any more jacked.”

Shiro can feel his ears go red, but he shrugs. “Fighting aliens will do that to you, I guess.” He says. “Are you ready to go?” The _why are you not wearing your bath suit_ question hangs in the air.

“Actually, I think I’ll stay on the ship, but you should go. Have fun.” As he says it, Adam’s tone is nonchalant, but his muscles are tense.

“Why?” Shiro asks looking at him straight in the eyes.

Adam swallows, and looks away. Shiro knows that sometimes, Adam is the one who hates his own honesty policy the most. He also knows that he will never stop adhering to it, not for the things that matter, so he waits.

“The scars…” Adam starts slowly, stubbornly staring at something on Shiro’s right. “The scars are not just on my face, Takashi.”

Shiro raises his eyebrows in confusion, because it’s not like he didn’t expect it: the scars clearly continue past his neck and wrist, it’s just that he never thought that Adam had been actively avoiding showing them to him.

He takes a few careful steps towards Adam. “It’s okay,” he whispers, and gently takes the edge of Adam’s shirt. “May I?” He asks.

He can see Adam visibly tense, but he nods nevertheless, and helps him take his shirt off.

It’s true: most of the left side of his chest is a bit lighter than the rest of his body, crumpled and covered in messy scars. Shiro softly traces the patterns with his hands, and the roughness feels almost as soft as silk under his fingertips.

“I think you are beautiful,” he whispers.

“You _have_ to say that,” Adam argues. His voice is a bit choked up.

“That’s not true,” Shiro replies, touching Adam’s cheek gently, so that he looks back at him. “We never lie to each other, remember?” Adam smiles a bit. He’s holding back tears.

“I do remember,” he says.

It had been the summer when they were fourteen, they’d only been friends for a few months. Shiro had spent the first weeks of summer break politely ignoring his father, who’d been politely ignoring him in return. Shiro thought he would have gone insane, until Adam had called asking for a place where he could crash for a while. He’d arrived three days later, and when Shiro asked why he couldn’t stay with his parents, he’d broken down almost immediately. _My dad saw me kiss a boy,_ he’d said. _He wasn’t mad, not like that, he was just upset that I’d kept it a secret. They were so cold, both of them. I couldn’t take it anymore. If I’d told them sooner…_ and then he’d turned to Shiro, eyes wide. _Promise me something,_ he’d said. _Promise me that we’ll always tell the truth to each other._ Shiro had promised, and they’d spent the summer together, walking and talking and telling each other everything. It had been the best summer Shiro’d had in years.

“You got these scars,” Shiro says firmly, “fighting to defend the Earth. You got them because you knew the risks, and you still wanted to protect the innocents who’d have suffered in a Galra invasion. You got them because you are a good man. They are beautiful, and so are you.”

Adam sobs quietly. “God, you’re such a sap,” he says, burying his nose into Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro laughs, and runs his hand through Adam’s hair. After a few seconds Adam very slowly pulls back. “I’m still not feeling great about the others seeing this,” he says.

Shiro considers this for a second. “There is a smaller beach behind the grove,” he concludes. “Let’s go. Just you and I.”

Adam raises his eyebrow, an intrigued smile appearing on his face. “Like a date?”

“Yeah,” Shiro replies, smiling back. “Like a date.”

***

Once they’ve all changed, they head to the beach in small groups. Hunk and Pidge come to pick Lance up from his room and they go together walking in _almost_ comfortable silence. _Almost_ because Lance has a feeling that Pidge and Hunk are thinking deeply about something that involves him (he’s not missed the sneaky glances they’ve been sharing) but not telling him, which is just rude.

They run into Allura on their way out, and she casually raises a hand to wave like she doesn’t look absolutely otherworldly in her white bath-suit. Well, to be fair, she is literally from another world.

“Hi,” Lance says.

“Hello,” she greets back. “Are we heading or are we waiting for the others?”

“I think Keith is there already,” Pidge shrugs. “And I’ve got a feeling Adam and Shiro are doing their own thing.”

“Aww, like a date? A beach date?” Hunk asks, his cheeks flushing with excitement.

“I guess?” Pidge raises an eyebrow at him.

“That’s cute,” Hunk smiles excitedly. “They are cute.”

“He’s right,” Lance says at Pidge’s blank face, “also, Adam is great. He has so many embarrassing stories about Keith.”

“If you think that Keith hasn’t been hanging out with your sister just to find out embarrassing stories about _your_ childhood, you’re very wrong.” Pidge informs him.

Lance sputters. “Yeah, sure,” he waves his hand dismissively. “What would Keith care about my childhood?”

Pidge raises her eyebrows, but she’s not looking at Lance, she’s looking at Hunk. Once again, _rude._

And, Lance is aware that it’s kind of a stupid question, because _he_ wants to know everything there is to know about Keith as a kid. For no reason, it’s just, he thinks it’s funny. But why would _Keith_ want to know about _Lance?_

Allura coughs. “Are you okay?” She asks softly, looking directly at him.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he nods, and then his breath dies in his throat, because they’ve finally made it onto the beach, and Keith is standing there playing with Kosmo, and he’s wearing _fucking speedos._ And it’s not like Lance hasn’t seen Keith shirtless before, it’s just that he must have exercised _a lot_ in his time with the Blade, because Lance could swear that those muscles weren’t there before (slightly chiselled, not like they’re there to show off, but like he’s actually someone who does enough physical work to have perfect muscles, which is frankly just rude). Lance’s face feels really warm. Why does his face feel warm? Maybe he’s getting a fever. He should check his temperature once they get back to the Atlas.

“Lance,” Pidge says, and her tone is slightly teasing. “Are you gonna move or what?”

He hadn’t realised he’d stopped, he hadn’t realised he’d been staring at Keith. And the weirdest thing he hadn’t realised is, it looks like Keith is staring back.

“Keith!” Hunk shouts, distracting Lance. “Catch!” He throws a big, blue inflatable ball at him. Kosmo and Keith both leap for it at the same time, and Keith only saves it from the wolf’s claws for a handful of seconds.

He smiles as he looks at the ball, and then looks back, and throws the ball at Lance.

***

The other beach is small and private, a patch of white sand caressed by the blue, blue sea. They lay down side by side and at first just lie there in silence, the warm breeze on their skin.

“What I hate the most,” Adam says slowly, “is that I can’t fly. Which is stupid, because I never actually liked flying that much.”

That was true. Shiro remembers that back when they were students at the Garrison, Adam had never really shared his love for flying. He was there because he loved the idea of finding out what was out there, but in another world, he would have been a scientist, not a pilot.

“You’re worth so much more than your flying,” Shiro says, and Adam scoffs bitterly. “No, it’s true. You don’t need to be able to pilot to be a valid member of this team, but most of all, you don’t need to be able to pilot to be incredible.”

“You’re such a sap,” Adam breathes out, halfway between a sigh and a laugh. It’s the second time he tells him that today. Shiro finds that he doesn’t mind.

They stay silent for a few minutes, until Shiro props himself up on one arm, leaning his chin on his right hand so that he can look directly at Adam. He looks like a cat stretched out in the sun.

“What?” he says, turning to face Shiro.

“Nothing,” he gestures with his left arm and tilts his head back a little, taking Adam in for a few seconds. Then, he takes a deep breath. “I hated my arm, at first,” he says, and the words come out faster than he intended. Adam frowns a little. “I had another prosthetic, before this one.”

“Your Galra one,” Adam guesses, leaning forward a bit.

Shiro nods. “I hated it. I had lost my arm because of them, they had put me, and Matt and Sam, through so many horrible things, they were trying to take over the universe… and I had a part of them stuck in me forever.”

“Every time you talk about what happened while you were away…” Adam says, and his words sound rushed, like they were forming in his head at the same time he was saying them, “I wish I could somehow have been with you. You deserved better.”

“The first few months were the worst,” Shiro says, slowly. “Not even the fighting pits, those felt so surreal that they barely affected me, but after I escaped, when I became a paladin of Voltron…” he doesn’t need to finish the sentence, because he knows that Adam will understand everything with no need for him to say it. He remembers those first few months, when his nightmares were riddled with fights, and experiments and Adam, who was so far away and alone, and he couldn’t talk about any of it because there were _teenagers_ who needed to be looked after.

Adam leans forward and gently takes Shiro’s hand in his, marred skin against white steel. What a wonderful pair they are.

“What I’m trying to say is,” Shiro says, swallowing hard. “Look at me now. I have you back. I have a new arm that my friend made for me which allows me to do incredible things. We are working together to save the world,” he takes a deep breath, and when he looks at him, Adam is smiling softly. Shiro pulls himself up, running his fingers through the sand. “I’m not saying that everything that happened to us was for the best. I’m not saying that everything is just going to be back to normal, like nothing happened. But for the first time, I am starting to think that things will work out.”

Adam follows Shiro’s example and props himself up, leaning against his elbow. He looks at Shiro for a few seconds, frowning, his gaze as intense as (Shiro barely has the courage to think it) the first time he kissed him, when he was deciding if it was a good decision. The thought has not even fully formed itself in Shiro’s head, that Adam leans forward and kisses him on the lips, firmly.

Even after he leans back, Adam stays close to his face, carefully searching his expression.

“I love you,” Adam says. “I still do, and I can’t imagine I’ll ever stop.”

It’s scary, sometimes, the way Adam so honestly says the things he feels, the way he lays the truth bare for Shiro to see.

“I love you too,” Shiro says, and suddenly he smiles, because he hadn’t realised how much he’d been longing to say it.

Adam smiles back.

***

Keith has learned three things in the last few hours: Pidge is absolutely ruthless when given an inflatable ball, Kosmo will cheat and teleport to whenever he needs to go to bite into said ball and, after he’s been under the sun for a few hours, small freckles will appear on Lance’s face.

The last bit of information isn’t really relevant, but it brands itself on Keith’s brain and his mind seems to constantly get back to it, like there is no way to get rid of it. He’s really glad that Adam is off somewhere with Shiro, because he knows there is no way he could go unnoticed with the sideways glances he’s been throwing at Lance if Adam was there.

Once eventually they all collapse on the sand, tired and wet and happy, Lance lets himself fall down next to Keith. His eyes are as blue as the sea behind him.

“What?” Lance asks, probably noticing Keith staring, because he’s a fucking mess.

He feels himself blush, and wonders if burying his face in the sand would be too embarrassing and/or unpleasant.

Instead, the words “You get freckles under the sun,” slip out of his mouth before he can stop them.

Why. Why this.

Lance chuckles to himself sheepishly. “It’s part of my natural charm,” he says with a shrug, but – are his cheeks a bit red? What’s going on?

“Hey, loverboy!” Veronica shouts, and it’s almost funny how Lance turns to her with no hesitation. “Stop making eyes at Keith, we are playing truth or dare.”

Lance sputters, “I’m not-” he starts, pulling himself up in a rush. He turns to Keith. “I wasn’t, like, doing that.” He says.

Keith’s throat is dry. “I know,” he breathes out. He pulls himself up as well, and shrugs in Veronica’s direction. “Shall we?”

Lance nods, and they both shuffle closer to the others, so that they are all sitting in a circle.

“Alright, because Veronica is the one who came up with this,” Lance says, raising a finger, “I say she goes first.”

“Bring it on,” she shrugs. “Truth.”

A wide smile opens on Lance’s face, and suddenly Veronica, sitting across from him, gets a bit pale.

“Why don’t you tell us,” Lance says, “how you saved your physics grade your last year of high school.”

Veronica groans. “You have me as an enemy for that,” she says, pointing an accusatory finger at Lance.

“Please, tell me this doesn’t involve sleeping with your teacher,” Rizavi says. She’s sitting very close to Veronica, but shifts back a little bit as she says it, to demonstrate.

Veronica looks at her, outraged, but starts explaining. “No,” she says raising her hands, “but I had to babysit the teacher’s pet goat. He needed to have someone watch her while he, and I quote, ‘went to try out ecstasy’. Her name was Funky. I didn’t know what to do with her, so I took her to a park, except she escaped, and then I couldn’t find her anymore.”

An uproar of laughter shakes the group, and even Keith can’t control himself.

Lance crosses eyes with him for a second and says, with a smirk, “Knew this would be a good story to ask her about.” Before he can even control it, Keith feels himself smile back.

“You’re all rude,” Veronica says, before continuing with her tale. “Anyway, I ended up buying another goat.” At the group’s inquisitive gaze, she shakes her head. “Don’t ask,” she explains, “a farmer owed me a favour.”

Next to her, Rizavi bursts into laughter again, covering her face with her hand. “Please go on,” she says breathlessly.

“Well, the new goat didn’t look at all like Funky, but I’m pretty sure that the teacher was constantly too stoned to notice. So I threatened to tell the school that he was taking heavy drugs, and that got him to raise my grade. In my defence,” her voice rises, “I’m pretty sure that the only reason I was failing was that the teacher was too stoned to properly score our tests.”

“You are iconic,” Rizavi says deadpan, looking at her.

Veronica shrugs, and in that moment, she looks incredibly like Lance. “It’s a gift,” she says, then raises her voice. “Anyway, I think it’s only fair that Lance goes next.”

“Agreed,” Pidge declares, before Lance can even butt a word in. He sighs, but doesn’t seem annoyed. “So, Lancey, truth or dare?” She asks.

“I’m a man of action,” Lance shrugs. “Dare.”

Pidge squints, looking attentively at Lance, and for a few seconds her expression is so evil that Keith is genuinely scared – but then Hunk nudges her with his elbow, and she rolls her eyes before shrugging.

“Fine,” she groans, “I dare you to flirt with and/or compliment everyone in this group. Except Veronica,” she adds quickly, “don’t flirt with her, that’s weird.”

Lance visibly swallows for a second, then looks to his right, away from Pidge and away from Keith. Allura is sitting next to him on that side, and Keith has to admit, unwillingly, that it makes sense for him to start with her because – well, he’s deeply in love and all of that. Keith’s stomach sinks, and he looks at the sand with a grimace. The sand doesn’t react.

“Allura,” Lance says, and his voice is so soft that Keith nudges the sand nervously. Still no reaction. “I’m not going to flirt with you, because that part of our relationship is done with, but I think you’re amazing and incredibly capable and impressive, and also your hair always smells nice which is just an incredible achievement. Please lend me your shampoo sometime.”

“I don’t know what shampoo means,” Allura says slowly. “But thank you. That’s the best compliment I’ve ever received from a friend.”

“Anytime, dear,” Lance says, then adds, quickly. “And _that_ wasn’t flirting. I call Hunk dear all the time.”

“He does!” Hunk confirms cheerily, and Keith has to rewind a bit, because what does it mean that that part of their relationship is over? Is he really… Keith shakes his head. The less he thinks about this, the better. Maybe he should apologise to the sand.

“Alright, Ina, let’s see,” Lance continues, looking at the girl sitting next to Allura. Keith probably shouldn’t be surprised that he’s on first name basis with the MFE pilots, because Lance, differently from him, knows how to talk to people.

“Ina,” Lance says again, and his tone is overly pompous this time, announcing incoming flirting. “You can teach me statistics anytime. I want to know if my heartbeat picking up every time you enter a room is an example of correlation implying causation.” He winks dramatically.

Leifsdottir doesn’t seem fazed. “Please never say that again,” she says softly.

“Yeah, Lance,” Pidge says, shaking with laughter. “That was awful.”

“Sorry, I tried,” Lance shrugs. “Nadia,” he turns to Rizavi, “you’re super cool and I would trust you with my life. I can’t come up with a pick-up line because that’s just how in awe I am of you, and I’m not even being sarcastic right now. If I die I want you to inherit all of my earthly possessions.”

“That’s dramatic, but I’ll take it,” Rizavi says.

“No, really, you’re so cool,” Lance repeats, then turns to his sister. “Veronica, you suck,” he says quickly, and she makes an outraged sound that Lance ignores to focus his attention on James.

“James, I don’t really know what to come up with for you, because I still think you were kind of rude to Keith when we were in school.”

James looks down awkwardly, and Keith says, casually, “It’s cool, he apologised.”

Lance turns to him. “Did he?”

Keith nods slowly as Lance searches his face. He doesn’t know how he feels about Lance being genuinely annoyed at James on his behalf, and he is certain he’s going red again. _It’s the freckles,_ Keith thinks, nonsensically, _they highlight his eyes._

Lance looks at Keith for only one more second, and then turns to James again. “Okay, then,” he says. “I think you’re a very talented pilot. And I guess you’ve got cool hair. Just not as cool as mine.”

James goes red. “My hair is great, thank you very much.”

“Just take the compliment,” Kinkade, next to him, warns him.

“Fine,” James groans, “thanks.”

“Now, Ryan,” Lance says, his face lightening up as he talks, “you have the biggest dick energy I’ve ever seen. Please bench-press me.”

All of a sudden, Keith feels out of breath, because there is so much to unpack there, that he considers again sticking his head in the sand and never coming out.

“Are you being serious?” He manages to spit out, and it comes out way more bitter than he meant it to. There’s a feeling deep in his stomach, tight and unpleasant, that sometimes seems to turn his words into poison when he’s around Lance. He doesn’t want to name it, but somewhere in the back of his head, something whispers that if he did, he would call it frustration. Awkwardness. Or in this case, _jealousy._

Lance doesn’t seem fazed by Keith’s outburst, which sort of hurts in a way, because he knows that sometimes he’s more mean to Lance than he means to, but he has never realised that it happens so often that Lance is numb to it. Keith just wishes… he wishes he could speak to Lance for real, with no embarrassment, no awkward lies to get himself off the hook.

He thinks about how things always work better with them when they talk simply and naturally, when they strip off the personas that they both hide behind. And it’s just that so often Keith doesn’t know how to do that, not for real. Sometimes it’s easy, and other times, especially when he’s with the others, it’s harder than fighting an entire army of Galra.

“I mean, look at him,” Lance is saying, gesturing towards Kinkade, “tell me I’m wrong.”

Keith looks down, because. It’s not that Kinkade isn’t, objectively, one of the most beautiful people he’s ever seen. It’s that Lance is sitting next to him, and light freckles are decorating his tanned cheeks, and his blue eyes look like the ocean. It’s not really a competition.

“Whatever,” he says, and at the same time Kinkade just nods silently at Lance. Lance’s mouth falls open.

“I don’t know if I want to be you,” he tells him, “or to marry you.”

“Lance, will you stop swooning?” Pidge cuts him off, rolling her eyes.

“Sure,” Lance mutters, after one last moment of staring in awe at Kinkade, and then looks at his left, where Hunk is sitting. He’s made a small sand castle in front of him.

“Hunk,” Lance starts, “you know how much I value our friendship. But also,” he raises his eyebrows suggestively, “you can butter my buns at any time.”

Hunk laughs. “I’ll butter as many buns as you want,” he says, “as long as they are literal buns. I love you, but I don’t want to be anywhere near your metaphorical buns.”

Keith snorts while Lance dramatically raises a hand to his chest. “I’ve never been this hurt in my _life,_ ” he complains. “And I mean it. Literal dying hurt less.”

Keith laughs until suddenly, it hits him. “Hold on,” he says, raising a hand and turning to look at Lance in the eyes. “How would you know?”

“About… dying?” Lance asks, and at Keith’s nod, he looks down, his cheeks going a bit red. “I kind of… died? While you were away?” He looks back up at Keith, his lips pursed, like he’s scared of his reaction.

“You-” Keith stutters. Suddenly, he can’t bear to look at Lance. Lance, who _died._ Who died while Keith was gone. “Wait, I- was I the only one who didn’t know?”

He looks up at the group. The paladins are all nodding, refusing to meet his eyes.

Veronica clears her throat, “I needed to talk to someone about it and I told these guys,” she gestures towards the MFE pilots, “so I… guess so?”

Keith turns towards Lance again, but he’s looking to the side, away from him. Keith resists the urge to touch his cheek, to gently make him look at him.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” The words don’t even come out angry, or frustrated. He just feels… defeated.

“I didn’t really…” Lance is still not looking at him. “- I didn’t really think you’d care?”

Keith feels like someone actually, physically stabbed him. His chest hurts, but he forces himself to breathe normally.

“I mean,” Lance continues, finally looking up, “Allura revived me right away, so it really isn’t that big of a deal.” He shrugs, but his voice is low. Uncertain.

“Lance, you _died_ ,” Keith manages to exhale. “Of course it’s a big fucking deal.”

Lance flinches, ever so slightly. Keith wouldn’t even notice if he wasn’t sitting right next to him.

“Lance didn’t want to worry you,” Allura intervenes. Her voice is soft and firm at the same time. “He knew that finding out would have made you even more conflicted about leaving. That’s why he didn’t tell you.”

_Well, he was fucking right._ Keith wants to say. Instead, he swallows. “Okay,” he says slowly. “Let’s maybe… talk about this some other time.” He nods to the rest of the group, who all seem to have found a great interest in the sand.

He doesn’t want to let the subject go, he wants to talk to Lance and ask him why he hasn’t told him and if he’s alright and if he’s mad at Keith and if he can ever forgive him, but this is too public. Everyone’s eyes are on them, and Keith can’t do it.

Thankfully, Lance seems to be on the same page as him.

“Sure,” he says quickly, looking away from Keith, straight at Pidge. “Pidge, I’m not going to flirt with you,” he says, “you’re like, ten, and that’s weird.”

“I am fifteen, but fair,” she shrugs.

Lance looks to her side, and only seems to realise in that moment that it’s Keith’s turn now. Inexplicably, his face goes red, which is fair, because they’ve just gotten into a borderline fight. Keith hates the fact that, deep down, he is almost excited for whatever Lance will end up saying.

“Huh, Keith,” Lance says, rubbing his neck nervously. “I… I think you’re neat.”

Keith’s eyebrows rise. He’s not disappointed.

“Thanks?” He spits out.

Behind him, he can hear Pidge groan.

“Lance!” She shouts. “That was pathetic.”

Hunk turns to her, raising an eyebrow and she looks back, defiantly. Hunk shakes his head, and once again, Keith has no idea what’s going on.

“Lance, try that again or I _swear_ , I will pull out my blackmail folder.”

Keith turns to Lance again, who has significantly paled.

“Right, okay,” Lance mutters. Keith sees his Adam’s apple go up and down once, before he looks at Keith. “Despite the fact that I still find you annoying,” he breathes out, with no real edge in his voice, “your stupid mullet is growing on me. You also look very badass with your knife.” He closes his mouth, then opens it again like he wants to add something, but turns away and looks at Pidge instead.

“Was that good enough?”

“Whatever,” Keith hears Pidge’s voice, but doesn’t look away from Lance.

Well, at least he likes the knife.

***

They are holding each other, and Shiro is comfortable and warm and _happy._ They have gone back to the Atlas, and now they are lying together, in a messy tangle of sheets. Shiro, his arms around Adam’s bare chest, can feel his scars against his own skin. In a way, they remind him of parchment, and the thought makes him smile. After all, they tell a story.

Shiro uses his Altean hand to run his hands through Adam’s hair. It’s not a contortion he’d be able to do with a normal arm, and Adam squirms under the touch, a smile opening on his face.

“This is haunting,” he laughs, “I love it.” He turns around a bit, so that he can high five the hand. “I’m sure we can find some creative uses for this.”

Shiro laughs, warmth exploding in his chest.

“You’re terrible,” he says.

“You love it.”

“I do.” Shiro agrees, and when he looks at him, he finds Adam smiling back at him.

“Can we just stay here forever?” Adam says then, his eyes searching Shiro’s.

“When all of this is done,” Shiro promises, pulling himself up. “But I’m afraid for now, it’s about time we go get the others.”

“You are too good for this world,” Adam leans forward, takes his hand. “I hope you know that.”

He’s never thought about it, not really. Everything he’s done for the world, for the universe – he’s done it because it was the right thing to do. To him, it was never a choice.

“You’re thinking something along the lines of _I’m just doing what’s right,_ ” Adam huffs with a smile, and Shiro almost laughs, because, Adam knows him so well. “You’re right, of course,” he continues. “But I want you to know, you deserve better than everything that happened to you.” His tone is so honest, so real, that Shiro’s heart contracts.

“I’ve got you back,” he says, “that’s all I need.”

Adam snorts. “Sappy.”

“You are one to talk,” Shiro shouts back, hitting him with a pillow. Adam laughs warmly, then pushes back his glasses, and sighs.

“We should go,” he says, after a moment of contemplation. “We probably need to make sure Keith hasn’t accidentally embarrassed himself so much that he stabbed himself.”

That reminds Shiro of something, so he gestures frantically, to hold Adam’s attention.

“Speaking of Keith,” Shiro says, slowly, “he and Lance.”

Adam props himself up on one elbow. “You have finally picked up on that?”

He wants to say, _I’m not sure what I picked up on._ He shrugs, and because this is Adam, he says exactly that.

“Keith is an idiot who doesn’t know how to deal with feelings,” Adam explains, nonchalantly. “And I haven’t known Lance for long enough, but I think he’s an oblivious mess. They remind me of someone.” He raises his eyebrows.

“Listen,” Shiro starts to say.

“After I kissed you for the first time,” Adam interrupts him, “we went on three dates and you thought they were _friendly drinks._ When I called you my boyfriend for the first time, you said _thanks._ ”

“ _Listen,”_ Shiro repeats, louder. “This is slander. Defamation.”

“It’s only defamation if it isn’t true,” Adam snorts, and leans forward to pick up a t-shirt and a pair of pants, which he then throws at Shiro. “I thought it was endearing,” he continues as he picks up his own clothes. “But my point is, we raised Keith, so we can’t be surprised that he’s a disaster.”

“I’m not _that_ much of a disaster,” Shiro argues, which would sound more convincing if he didn’t say it while struggling to figure out how to put on his shirt.

“Takashi, my love,” Adam says, grabbing the shirt and helping him get his arms and his head in the right holes, “you thought I came on this mission because I cared _that_ much about saving the universe.”

Then he leans forward, and kisses him, and Shiro loses the ability to argue.

***

Lance is exhausted.

It’s not that hanging out with everyone isn’t fun, it’s just that Keith has been sitting right next to him this whole time, and he’s been – behaving and reacting to things in a way Lance really didn’t expect, and he’s not sure what’s going on right now. To be fair, with Keith, he’s _never_ sure what’s going on. It’s like when they were at school, and sometimes Keith would do and say _something,_ and Lance would _feel_ things, and he could just never understand what was going on. And he thought the _things –_ the things that Keith sometimes made him feel – had gone, but they seem to always be coming back. And Lance just doesn’t get it, and now he is exhausted.

Which is why when it’s Keith’s turn to answer a question, and Nadia asks him (genuinely, because Nadia isn’t mean and doesn’t know anything about the situation) about Acxa, Lance thinks he might as well dive into the fucking sea, because the sole thought makes him stupidly uncomfortable and he doesn’t know how to deal with it.

The good news is, Keith seems to be about as uncomfortable, because his face goes fully red as he stares at Nadia, confused.

“Nothing’s going on,” he says, grumpily.

“Really, nothing at all?”

Keith groans. “We are friends,” he says. “She was in a situation that I could understand, but if you’re implying that there’s anything more than that, then no.”

He sounds sincere, and suddenly Lance feels lighter. It’s strange, and he doesn’t really get it, but he finds himself staring at Keith nonetheless. His nose and cheeks are a bit burned. He looks – funny. Almost cute, Lance would say.

“You may have nothing going on,” Pidge interrupts him, rolling her eyes like she couldn’t care less, “but Hunk, here, has an announcement to make.”

“Pidge!” He shouts, and his cheeks go red. Lance really, _really_ hopes this is about Shay.

“Come on,” Pidge ignores him, “tell us about your alien girlfriend.”

“I don’t have an alien girlfriend!” Hunk complains, but his voice is too high pitched for anyone to believe it.

“Hunk,” Lance says, “I can’t believe you haven’t told me about this! Spit it out.”

Hunk groans, burying his face behind his hands. “I don’t think she’s my girlfriend.” His voice sounds really small. “We haven’t really discussed it.”

“But?” Lance shouts. “Come on, man! Details!”

“Shay kissed me, okay?” Hunk shrieks, eventually, and the group cheers.

A warm, soft feeling spreads through Lance’s chest. “That’s great!” He shouts, and gets up to land in Hunk’s lap. “I’m proud of you,” he continues. “But I can’t believe you haven’t told me.”

From up close, Hunk’s face is even redder. “It’s not a big deal,” he says weakly. “I just don’t want to get my hopes up, I guess.”

“Hey, man,” Lance raises a finger, waving it in his face. “You’re a catch. She’s the lucky one.”

Hunk smiles softly, looking down. The truth is, Lance is truly, incredibly happy. But there’s something deep, deep in his stomach, something raw and sharp-edged. It’s the idea that even if they’re okay now, Allura could never have loved him. It’s the thought that no matter what this _thing_ with Keith is, it’s never going to go anywhere. Despite the heat, despite the fact that he’s still sitting in Hunk’s lap, he feels – cold. Lonely.

His thoughts are interrupted by Adam’s voice, who shouts, “Hey, kids!”

They all turn, to see Adam and Shiro at the edge of the beach. They are holding hands.

“It’s about time we get going,” Adam continues, “there’s a universe to save, and all that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to post another chapter before all hell breaks loose tomorrow, ya know.  
> As expected, exams kicked me in the butt and I had absolutely no time to even look at this fanfiction. The good news is, that's done now, so if everything goes to shit tomorrow, you guys can at least have this fic to turn to?  
> Speaking of tomorrow: Good luck, fellas. Whatever happens, despite everything, I will miss Voltron. I have lost trust in this show a long time ago, but I hope that whatever happens, it will have been worth it. It's been a joy flying with you.
> 
> Next chapter features two idiots being.... well, idiots.
> 
> P.S.: whatever happens tomorrow, ADAM IS DEFINITELY ALIVE, and also KICK


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